Why would I use a ‘pop-up’ community?
Pop-up Insight Communities are typically more tactical in nature and are often deployed with a specific business problem in mind. Often a higher intensity of tasks are given over a shorter period of time making pop-up communities a great way of collecting qualitative data at high volumes. There are no hard and fast rules as to what a pop-up community needs to be, but here are a few use cases.
New ideas and new products – Many brands use pop-up communities to test out new ideas or concepts that are early in development, allowing them to quickly ascertain if the cost and time needed for further development will be with. Often they deploy communities with an open membership, meaning anyone can join. Open communities are a great place for the crowdsourcing of ideas. By inviting collaboration and co-creation and product roadmap suggestions, you can assess common themes and unearth hidden gems from your customer base. The old adage that ‘no idea is a bad idea’ is not entirely true but where common themes and suggestions emerge from a broad selection of respondents, then this can justify the cost of further development.
Broader category research – You might use an unbranded pop-up community where you’re looking to obtain feedback from the overall market or category. Not only can this be useful where you are seeking an impartial viewpoint, but it can also act as a bias-check if you have an existing community. You always want to ensure that the thoughts and opinions of your Insight Community members are being reflected in the wider world and so a pop-up community on wider issues can help you do this quickly and easily.
Prospective and lapsed customers – Pop-up communities are a great method of attracting prospective and lapsed customers. Using an unbranded community will make recruitment easier and having a seperate community for this type of member means you won’t filter out biased responses generated by long-term brand community familiarity.