Part two: Link and Leverage – a penny for your thoughts

If you have listened carefully to the opinions of your customers, paid attention to their changing wants and needs, and heard the wider conversations in your field, then you are in a far stronger position than ever before to understand and capitalise on the dynamics of your market niche. (If you haven’t then read Listen and Learn.) As well as having the kind of market intelligence your predecessors would have died for, you also have a direct line to every single one of your customers, and to the other businesses catering for your niche.

How can you take advantage of this situation? First, by creating links that put you and your brand at the heart of every conversation.

There are at least two kinds of link worth forging. First, there are the editorial links between those conversations and your own unique content (the material you create, publish and perhaps sell). And second, there are commercial links between your customers or members, and all those who offer products and services they may want to buy. 

Get these links right, and you should be able to leverage them with new streams of direct and indirect revenue.

Linking ideas, knowledge and businesses

Editorial links mean finding ways of connecting activities on your site (both the formal ones you publish yourselves, and the interactive ones) with the discussion topics. So many organisations run discussion forums that have minimal links with the rest of their sites. Not only is this a wasted promotional opportunity, it is a wasted opportunity to distinguish between their organisations and all the others who may be hosting similar discussions elsewhere.

Thus when people are discussing the impact of the budget on your area, for example, why not make sure that your latest tax guide is advertised on the same screen; or that your recent parliamentary consultation is referenced? Why not consider asking one of the better informed discussion contributors to write a blog or a regular column in your newsletter? Why not run a highly promotable ‘Ask the Expert’ online event with a well-known industry specialist, a webinar on reducing tax liabilities, or even a series of road-shows around the country for your target audience? A survey on business confidence within your community would provide valuable information, and should also result in a whitepaper of lasting value.

All of these are opportunities to add value to the discussions for your customers, provide them with a depth of information and commentary that puts you ahead of the competition and means that your site becomes the natural home for such conversations in future.

In addition, they are opportunities for you, to create a flexible stream of new products and tools, some of which can command significant price points.

Then there’s the other kind of linking: creating a marketplace that puts your customers or members (what B2B publishers call the ‘buy side’) in touch with all those who supply products or services that might interest them (the ‘sell side’). These might be the training organisers, the publishers, the software suppliers, those offering financial services and all manner of business solutions.

The sell-side comprises the kind of people who already sponsor events, take out advertisements or hire stalls at your face-to-face events – but your web presence provides the opportunity for a far richer relationship between you, them and your customers than simply selling them ad space or square-footage.

Facilitating conversations that pay

If you know exactly who’s in your community - and listen closely to what they say - you can encourage relevant and timely conversations between different groups (both within and between the buy- and sell-sides) that have genuine value to them and couldn’t take place anywhere else. These conversations will be of obvious interest to sell-side clients, and with a little imagination it will be possible to devise far more interesting and lucrative campaigns than traditional banner ads or PPC.

A client may opt to sponsor activities that support and enhance the conversation on your site, while also putting him in direct touch with your customers; or a new face-to-face event that has been suggested by the conversation; or support research relevant both to your members and to him. Such campaigns are a far cry from the ‘advertorial’ that magazines occasionally resort to, and they should result in beneficial and relevant content that would otherwise not exist; and if you can allow the client to speak to members of your community who are also truly the key decision-makers in their field, then your value to the client is high even when the number of participants in the conversation is small.

The opportunity for the client, and for you, is limited by four factors:

• The richness and relevance of the conversations you are hosting.
• The quality of your listening and your learning from them.
• Your ability to link in to those conversations.
• Your imagination in leveraging them.

All four are factors within your sphere of influence, almost wholly, and the rewards are potentially high. You’ll have real retention of membership and brand awareness; new products and tools you can sell those members; and valuable new campaign opportunities you can sell to your clients.

Image: www.flickr.com/photos/dragoodman/2412031756/