At the end of last month, we hosted a panel discussion with Echo Market Research on What to Consider When Designing a Long-Term Community. We received an overwhelming amount of questions during the session and, unfortunately, we were unable to answer all of them during the hour-long discussion. Since these are questions we frequently get from our clients and customers, we wanted to share our responses on a broader scale so everyone could benefit.
In case you missed the panel discussion, you can watch the recording to hear insights from Kerry Hecht, Founder & CEO at Echo Market Research, Steve Becker, SVP, Research & Strategy at Echo Market Research, Laura Pulito, VP, Research Services at Recollective and Dana Cassady, Director of Account Management at Recollective.
General
How would you define a long-term community?
Recollective: A “community” is a way of conducting research with a targeted group of people over a specific duration. They are conducted online, can consist of any number of participants and last anywhere from just a few days all the way to being more ongoing in nature.
Echo: Communities are a place where participants are assigned various activities where they can share their opinions and ideas with one another as well as interact with moderators directly.
Recollective: When we say “long-term” we are referring to a community that spans months, years or could even be created with an ongoing, evergreen nature to them. These long-term communities are great for companies and organization that want to stay connected to their target audiences. One of the main differences between a short-term community and a long-term community is the moderator and participant engagement, which tends to be higher in the long-term versions.
What is the business case for long-term communities vs. short-term communities?
Recollective: There are a few main cases for a long-term community. The main reason is that a long-term approach allows companies to detect changes in consumer attitudes and behaviors over time, something that isn't as apparent when only looking at static snapshots of research. Another is that by leveraging long-term communities, companies can introduce new and innovative products to a panel of engaged, relevant and invested participants who already understand the context of the product they're testing.
Echo: From our experience, long-term communities allow for deeper insights because of the increased participant engagement that exists. The longer that you work with a community the more you understand their nuances and are able to ask more targeted, complex questions.
Recollective: Long-term communities also help reduce ongoing recruitment costs, increase response rates, boost data quality and help minimize attrition in the community. Also, long-term communities provide a predictable steady stream of actionable insights that can be used to support ongoing business decisions versus isolated insights from short-term projects. Finally, long-term communities foster a sense of belonging and commitment within the community, which is a benefit to both participants and the sponsoring organization.
Design & Structure
What frequency of activities are needed to keep community members engaged?
Echo: There is no one-size-fits-all activity frequency. Some of our clients run activities every single day, while others run them every few months. The important thing is that frequency of activities is dependent on multiple factors, such as the type of product, target audience and the frequency in which your organization needs new insights.
Recollective: Our recommendation is to be thoughtful about how frequently you engage your community members. We suggest designing activities in a way that participants can complete them in one sitting, set realistic timelines on when to expect participation and be considerate of your participants' time. In addition, we typically recommend providing members with a sense of what to expect from your community so that they're not surprised by activity frequency or the types of activities they might be asked to participate in.
When setting up a long-term community, how do you avoid attrition?
Recollective: Setting clear expectations during recruitment and onboarding is key to preventing attrition, as it helps to ensure that you're bringing in the right people who understand the commitment involved. Another important strategy is to provide community members with a sense of purpose and belonging. One way to do this is by incorporating social elements into your community design, which gives participants the opportunity to interact with one another and helps create a sense of community. As a best practice, we recommend utilizing a mix of activities and task types to keep things fresh and engaging. Make sure to also acknowledge and thank your participants for their time and contributions. Finally, from a practical perspective, ensure that all technical and functional aspects of the platform are working well and that the participant experience is as seamless as possible.
How do you maintain participant focus and quality over the course of a long-term community project?
Recollective: One effective strategy for maintaining quality is to ensure that your screening process is robust and that participants meet the criteria you set in advance. A strong screener will help ensure that you're bringing in higher-quality participants that better fit your requirements and research objectives. Additionally, consistent moderation, clear communication, and thoughtful activity design will help ensure that participants are engaged and their responses are of high quality.
Echo: We also recommend validating participants throughout the community to ensure authenticity. You can also implement quality checks by reviewing responses throughout the project to identify participants that might be declining in engagement or those that are providing lower-quality responses. As a best practice, we recommend removing participants who are clearly not contributing value to the project and bring in new participants instead.
Engagement
What types of activities keep participants most engaged?
Recollective: There's no one-size-fits-all answer, as it depends on your participants and what you're asking them. That being said, video-based activities, particularly video IDIs and focus groups, tend to have strong engagement. Diary or journaling activities are also popular and tend to have good engagement. Photo or video submissions tend to work well for certain product categories as well. Homework assignments where participants are tasked with capturing real-world insights like shopping behaviors or product usage also tend to be highly engaging.
Echo: We would add that message boards also tend to be very engaging because they create a social environment and encourage participant-to-participant interactions. We also find that live activities where moderators and participants interact in real time also tend to drive strong engagement.
How do you incentivize community participation?
Recollective: Incentive structures should be designed to align with the effort required to complete activities. We recommend regularly reviewing and adjusting incentive structures as needed to ensure they remain competitive and enticing. It's important to note that while monetary incentives are common, non-monetary incentives can also be highly effective. Consider showing participants the impact of their contributions and how they've influenced product decisions, or feature them in internal communications. These non-monetary incentives can drive strong engagement and create a sense of contribution and purpose among participants.
Echo: From our experience, participants also appreciate sneak peeks of upcoming products/initiatives and special recognition within the community.
If a participant in a long-term community is no longer engaged, how would you handle this situation?
Recollective: If you notice a participant is no longer engaged, we recommend reaching out to them with a personalized message. Ask if they're still interested in participating and if there's something you can do to re-engage them or address any concerns they have. If they don't respond or indicate they're no longer interested, it's appropriate to remove them from the community. As a best practice, consider sending an "off-boarding" message thanking them for their contributions and letting them know you'd be happy to have them back if circumstances change.
Echo: We also recommend analyzing patterns of disengagement so you can understand why participants are dropping off and proactively prevent it from happening with others.
Final Thoughts
Overall, the key to running a successful long-term community is to start with a solid foundation (clearly defined objectives and well-screened participants), maintain ongoing engagement through thoughtful activity design and social elements, and continually iterate and optimize your approach based on what you're learning.
If you have any additional questions about running a long-term community or would like to get started with your own community on Recollective, please don't hesitate to contact us.
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