Business Market Research and Consumer Market Research

Microsoft's Online Partner Marketing Group used Voice of Customer Business Market Research to identify ways to improve the value of the Microsoft partner web site. This was critical since partners generate a high percentage of Microsoft's revenue.

Establishing a strong and competitively differentiating on-line Community experience was identified by partners as a critical requirement for the Microsoft partner site.

10 Tips for Creating Successful Online Communities were identified as a result of the Voice of Customer Research.

Creating Successful Online Communities
Based on the Voice of Partner findings, we are developing a process for delivering increased interaction between partners and between partners and Microsoft.

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Per the visual above, there are;

• Case Studies, ""Best Practice" Articles and Columns are vehicles for publishing information. They provide the Building Blocks for learning. However, these vehicles are clearly "one way" communications.
• Blogs provide "interactivity" by enabling partners to provide comments and feedback regarding the "building blocks" events.
• Partners also requested Information Dissemination mechanisms in the form of Audiocasts, RSS Feeds and Webcasts. They identified portability as important.
• Structured Vehicles such as Forums were identified for "live" interaction between partners and Microsoft and partners.
• Forums should continue the information flow by generating FAQ Information for dissemination.

Blogs should be deployed as the interactive mechanism for each of the vehicles above. Blogs are also viewed by partners as the one vehicle that comes closest to delivering in-person interactions.

5 Components of the Community Experience

1. Focused Content
   • An online community that offers content focused on the audience's primary interests is the hook that attracts and maintains active participation. Because the information will be used in daily partner to customer engagements, OPM must ensure that Microsoft-provided content is relevant, accurate, easy to access, and uses clear, unambiguous and partner-centric nomenclature.
   • Partner-provided content must also be targeted and specific and edited to the same specifications as MS content. This targeted information serves as the foundation level of the illustration above.
2. Flexible Content Dissemination
   • Partners tell us that time is money and every non-customer facing minute they spend must be maximized. The implication for OPM is to offer portability of information wherever possible; enabling downloads to DVD's, MP3, smart phones and other portable devices.
3. Interactive Forums
   • The interactive design component allows partners the opportunity to weigh in on those subjects that are of specific interest to them personally or to their company business.
   • Messaging around specific communities must be as specific as possible to encourage the right levels of participation by the right members. Because they are sensitive about divulging proprietary business information, partners must be assured that their discussions are secure on the site.
4. Listening Mechanisms
   • Rate this Page/Contact Us Support:
     • This feature allows partners to intertwine discussion directly with the content they've viewed. Because the forum is in free form, daily reports allow OPM to maintain vigilance over the performance of the site overall as well as over partner attitudes and impressions.
     • Partners can report anything from broken links and download issues to concerns and opinions they have about the content. Production uses the former to maintain the site and marketing uses the latter to refine campaigns and content.
     • Blogs and Online Collaboration tools:
   • Blogging
     • Less than five years ago, blogging was widely considered superfluous to most B2B marketing strategies. Fear of letting employees talk directly to customer or partner audiences without close scrutiny, and the concern for revealing confidential or restricted information prematurely into the market place are some reasons why B2B strategists tended not to embrace them.
     • These remain legitimate fears however, the medium itself represents such a powerful marketing channel, companies cannot afford not to include them as integral to their touch and contact strategy. Microsoft Partners tell us that they want to blog about business issues, thereby providing the partner program with a powerful indicator of what's happening in the real world, in real time.
5. Ongoing Support
   • FAQ's
     • A partner in one of our research studies asked a question that was so sensible and intuitive. In a discussion about community, he raised the importance of having a shared knowledge base where partners can post their issues and outcomes, allowing other partners to benefit from their experiences.
     • The need for an interactive FAQ section by topic is under review and will eventually become a keystone of the online community strategy, segmented by partner audience.

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