Five common Insight Community mistakes to avoid
When it comes to Insight Communities, it’s safe to say we know our stuff. With over a decade of experience and a few hundred Communities under our belt, our team understand all the small elements that add up to make a worthwhile Community.
That’s not to say we haven’t seen our fair share of mistakes along the way, here are 5 common pitfalls we’ve seen clients make, so you don’t have to…
Rushing to choose a Community platform
Let’s be honest. We’ve all fallen for a slick demo at one time or another. All too often the features that got us excited don’t quite work as well in real-life as they did when the sales person was showing us, or they only work in very specific circumstances. Our annual survey with Insight Community buyers showed that the buyers consider the following factors most important:
- The research toolkit along with built-in analytics and reporting tools
- AI integrations e.g. AI moderator tools (Maya), survey chatbots, AI-assisted reporting, AI Chat tools.
Failing to onboard Members correctly
Onboarding a bit of a juggling act. You need ensure that your critical info on Members is captured whilst also creating an onboarding process which is painless for participants. Profiles need to be linked back to the objectives of the Community and data needs to be captured in a user-friendly way.
Choosing the wrong rewards model
We’re always talking about the value in listening. It’s amazing some of the insight and themes you can pick up just through listening to what your Members are saying. This is also true of rewards. Many brands struggle to come up with a reward model, but don’t ask their own Members! Trust us this is something people are always happy to talk about and understanding the mix of intrinsic and material rewards Members want is crucial to your value exchange.
Neglecting your stakeholders
Members aren’t the only ones who need a little love and attention. Stakeholders are often only involved in the planning and launch of a Community and then somewhat forgotten about. You might be thinking about your Community every day, but others won’t. It’s just as important to keep re-engaging stakeholders as it is your members.
Creating the wrong outputs
We all learn in different ways. Whilst variety may be the spice of life you can waste some serious time creating outputs that are never really used. Be sure to ask for plenty of feedback on the info and format that different stakeholders need.
About the author
Hannah Sealy is Head of Client Partnerships at STRAT7 Researchbods, where she leads client relationships and commercial strategy, connecting clients with continuous insight and customer understanding through insight communities and always-on research strategies.
