B2B communities exist to help companies attract and retain customers, improve productivity, decrease costs, and more. Learn how to create a trusted business community environment where relationships and opportunities flourish.

1. Building B2B
Communities in a Low
Trust World
Lou Ordorica Social Networking Conference
Senior Community Manager 2010
Reseller Marketing Services

2. Agenda
• Business climate, business drivers, and business values
• Case Study:
• Construct a B2B community for $3B Hi-Tech distributor
• Building the community — methodology
• Lessons learned

3. A Challenging
Business Climate
• “Flat is the new growth.”
• “Necessity buying” patterns taking
hold
• Doing more with less is the new
normal
• Margins are under pressure
• Work much today harder to earn the
same dollars
• Weaker companies disappearing
• Customers putting off large purchases

4. Business Drivers
• ROI
• Gaining net new business
• Protecting customer base and
margins
• Filling the pipeline with qualified leads
• Converting leads to paying clients
• Achieving market differentiation
• Reducing costs and improving
efficiencies

5. Business Values
• Trust in corporations is deteriorating in the U.S.
• People buy from people they know
• “This is a relationship business.”
• Success or failure in relationships occurs “one conversation at a time”
• Golden Rule deviations usually end in tears
Our opportunity: to create a business community
environment where trusted relationships flourish

6. Case Study
• $3B specialty distributor of data networking and phone systems with 1,500
employees
• Customer base comprised of resellers, VARs, and ISVs
• Rebooted marketing organization
• Created a marketing joint venture with channel-focused conference organizer
in March 2009
• Spending less on traditional marketing and investing in community resources
• Hired Community Manager and invested in Telligent community platform

7. Business Goals
• Enable resellers to grow their businesses profitably
• Develop “Silver” level dealers into higher revenue
producing “Gold” and “Platinum” levels
• Double revenue in 5 years
• Grow wallet share — and take it from competitors
• Gain competitive advantage through innovation and differentiation
• Develop high margin professional services business

8. Community Model

9. Community Model
physical
events
1 per month
Boot Camps
Partner Councils
Customer
Appreciation Events
High Cost

10. Community Model
physical + webinars
events
1 per month 8 - 12 per month
Boot Camps Cisco WebEx
Partner Councils Meeting Center
Customer Citrix GoToWebinar
Appreciation Events
High Cost Medium Cost

11. Community Model
physical + + online
webinars community
events
1 per month 8 - 12 per month 7x24
Boot Camps Cisco WebEx Private
Partner Councils Meeting Center Branded
Customer Citrix GoToWebinar Discussion Groups
Appreciation Events Managed
High Cost Medium Cost Low Cost

12. Building the Community: Describe the Problem
• Who is the executive sponsor? Who are your champions?
• Who are your buyers? Partners? Competitors?
• What are the “people places”?
• Web sites
• Conferences
• Meetings — physical and online
• What keeps your community up at night?

13. Reaching Out to the
Community
• Get guidance from executive sponsors
and people invested in business goals
• What is generating the most calls?
• What are the big trends?
• Who can speak to issues and
opportunities facing the
community?
• Group and prioritize the resulting list of
topics and people
• Conduct interviews
• Listen generously!

14. Capture the Community Vision
• Clearly articulated, memorable, and easily repeatable
• “We want the online community to be your
Google — a starting point for information, best
sales practices, and networking.”
• “Enable our customers to grow their businesses
with practical advice they can put to work right away.”
• “A tool that brings closer to our customers and partners— one
conversation at a time.”
• Group brainstorming is best to capture and refine the community vision.

15. Selling the Community
• A B2B Community exists for business — customers, profits, productivity
• Make the community relevant to executives. How will the community:
• Make it easier to find new customers?
• Increase customer loyalty?
• Improve employee productivity?
• Decrease costs?

16. Make the Community Relevant to Executives
Benefits Area Business Impact
Reducing Support Costs
• Ask the Experts • Reduce Support Calls
• Discussion Forums • Fewer FTEs
• Blogs • Decrease OPEX
• Wikis • Improve OI

17. What Makes a
Business Community?
• Community building blocks are
the same
• Identity
• Belonging
• Connectedness
• Social capital
• Caring for the whole

18. Create Business
Community Structures
• Primary audience is C-level
business executive
• A “gated” community:
• Exclusive
• Controlled access
• Segmented, based on roles —
very important!
• Managed
• Long-term growth

19. Create Community
Member Personas
• Personas are fictions rooted in reality
• Describe roles, motivators, pain points,
trigger words
• Use personas to guide editorial
decisions — microcopy, too
• Example: William Smith is a CIO at a
Fortune 500 company.
• Priorities: Growth (acquisition /
retention), Controlling costs,
Improving productivity
• Trigger Words: Cover Capital Costs
(NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR),
Payback, Cash Flows

20. Select Tools for the Business Community
• Focus on the building blocks — identity, belonging, connectedness
• Leverage mass social media where it makes sense
• Survey the landscape — look at competitors
• Focus on requirements, but be prepared to wear many hats
• Design
• User Experience
• Usability and User Acceptance Testing

21. To Brand or Not to Brand?
• Does your company possess brand equity? Protect the brand.
• Trademarked names of products and technologies
• Logos, colors, shapes
• No or little brand equity?
• Build the community first
• Let your customer’s needs dictate choices

22. Build the Community
Plan
• Audience definition — primary,
secondary, tertiary
• Content — taxonomies that define
topics and relationships
• Data sources
• Moderators
• Working Groups
• Steering Committees
• Editorial Calendar

23. Drive Participation with Content
Aggregated tools and Timely, productive, and
information covering visible dialogue that helps
business functions — sell, people run their
Effort quote, configure businesses
Repurposed web pages,
Market research — best
white papers, podcasts,
practices, competitive
videos covering products
analysis, insights
and solutions
Value

24. Content Taxonomy
Community Category Name Description
NPV, IRR,
Evaluating
Payback, Cash
Investments
Flows
Capital Costs,
Business
CEO ROI Risk
Enablement
Management
Business Process Improving
Refactoring Productivity

25. Establish a Social
Proof
• Follow people and adoption patterns
• Implement structures and processes that
spur interest and growth
• Leverage sponsors and existing
community base
• Roll up your sleeves — this is hard work!
• Create interesting profiles for your
“starter” members
• Start discussion threads, write blog
posts, set up wiki pages
• Get people interested and excited,
and ask for their participation

26. Market the Business
Community
• Market within the organization and
externally
• B2B outbound marketing is alive and well
• Leverage communication channels and
customer touch points
• Email: Newsletters, Email Signatures
• Direct Mail, Tele Marketing, On-Hold
Messages
• Webinars
• Tap into existing systems used for digital
marketing — SEO, CRM, SEM

27. Measure and Report
• Be sure to tell the stories
• Unsolicited member praise or criticism is gold
• Don’t fixate on activity — it is not the only measure of business impact
• Perceptions matter — be persistent, talk up the community at every
opportunity
• Enlist champions — people who believe and can convert others
• The most useful feedback is rooted in truth. Be open and avoid defensive
postures.

28. Lessons Learned
• Manage expectations early and often
• Delivering high value content is critical
• Embrace your role as a sales person
• Expect course corrections, sometimes
mid-stream
• Guard your time and attention with
vigilance
• Be courageous and take risks
• Leverage will get you to your goal
faster and with less effort

29. Thank You
Lou Ordorica
lou.ordorica@gmail.com
@lordorica
Subscribe to my blog:
http://web-achiever.com
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.