How to commercialize your community

How to commercialize your

SITEFORUM-powered

Online Community

Status: May 2011

tags: software, social business, online community, social networking, cloud, virtual business

Premium memberships for companies and users

Vendor directory

Vendor search

Company profiles

Automated payments

Email campaigns

Network groups

Virtual tradeshows

Premium content

Vertical SaaS offers

Webcasts / Online Trainings

SITEFORUM supports many different

ways to earn money online

Lead Generation

Advertising

Job market

Example Revenue Forecast

Revenue Stream Unit Unit price Total

Run a permanent virtual event with different target topics and sell Exhibition Booths to companies

50 € 500 per booth per month

€ 25.000 per month

Sell Company Premium Memberships. Includes Company Profile, Capability Profile, Vendor Search, Lead Generation and more.

100 € 100 per companyper month

€ 10.000 per month

Sell Network Groups to companies 100 € 50 per group per month

€ 5.000 per month

Sell Webinar functionalities to run Online Meetings, Video conferencing and Desktop Sharing

50 € 50 per company per month

€ 2.500

Allow companies to post Job Offers to your community, runa Job Board

100 € 100 per Job Offerper month

€ 10.000

Run Sponsored Campaigns and integrate sponsor content 20 € 500 per Company per month

€ 10.000

Total: € 62.500 per month

Average community with around 20,000 members

Virtual Events and Tradeshows are great ways to engage a community

The “Virtual Events” module offers you the opportunity to run your own virtual events such as trade shows, partner days, customer presentations and internal informational events.

The application is seamlessly integrated in the SITEFORUM Community Platform. Administrators can create virtual events and activate the community, plus engage participants in quick time. Handling events is easy and inexpensive and as such they can be held several times a month or a year – the generated content is kept as an important part in the community and as such can be reused in subsequent events.

SITEFORUM accompanied and supported their partners, helping customers to run virtual events and the company has used the service as part of the company marketing, developing the product as we deliver greater functionality. All gained experience, expertise and know how is streamed into the application creating a reliable and proven system which is field-tested, robust and easy to use.

Virtual Events and Tradeshows

References:

GreenExpo365.com is a permanent trade show to build up the “Interactive Green Community“. The show takes place several days a month and focusses on green and eco-friendly topics such as Green IT and sustainable energy.

HR.com VIEW (Virtual Interactive Educational World) targets Human Resources professionals. Each Month one or two fairs take place with focal points in the HR environment.

Global Investor Day (www.globalinvestorday.com) is a virtual fair for investors. Companies from different industries present their ideas in order to win institutional investors.


Participants and their advantages

Organisers

Boosts the activity of the community Creates new target groups Business model moves to an online environment,

boosting online turnovers Quick conversion of prospects to registered users Development of customers to exhibitors, experts

and thought leaders to keynote speakers Trouble-free and easy organization; performed several times a year Dynamic content is easy to re-use Fast and sustainable lead generation

Experts

Promotion of knowledge and expertise in webcasts Content, presentations and videos can be quickly

and effectively spread Increased business through new contacts in the

webcast auditorium Through integration of events in the community all

content is optimized for search engines

Visitors

Quick and easy access to the target groups via web browser, many trade shows a year available

No travel costs, the online environment is independent of location and residence

Easy to plan and effective time management Other interesting participants are easy to find and

contact Dynamic content allows interesting topics and

content to be forwarded easily

Exhibitors

Quick and easy access to the target groups via web browser, Greater scope, higher amount of contacts, leads and customers

Measurable results and easy report generation through amount of clicks, virtual business cards and leads, Simple setup of booth, easy to reuse

Ideal marketing through SEO, SEM and Social Media

Reduced costs allow for greater concentration on sales and higher budget for sponsorship

Easy booking of webcasts and keynotes


Corporate communications departments based on this module could use the “Virtual Events”, linked to Exchange/Active Directory and organize a virtual event nearly every month if they wished to and targeted at the appropriate set of internal employees without any of the above costs, this corporate communications tool would more than justify its investment.

Savings and Cost Reductions

Corporate communications costs can be reduced significantly, with the ability to create conference time virtually and allowing the corporate/product management teams to gain instant feedback with product launches at any time.

Example: A company has 500 sales people. The annual sales conference takes place in one location, takes three days. This would mean the following example shows:

Example cost overall is € 515.000

Unit Approx. costs Total

Travel € 700/person € 350.000

Hotel € 100/night for two nights € 100.000

Entertain / food € 100/person € 50.000

Event Mgmt € 15.000 € 15.000


Short Events: The duration is between one and two days, sometimes only a few hours.

Periodically Events: Periodic events can take place e.g. once a week or once a month guaranteeing a growth of the community.

Permanent Events: These events take place 24/7/365. A virtual presence is created for the company and they are updated by email whenever a visitor makes contact.

Generate revenue with

Renting and selling of booths: Depending on the type of event these can be from one-off or recurring fees. At the same time the integrated vendor directory can be promoted.

Exhibitors for services around the booth: The booth can be arranged individually for each exhibitor. The design gets customized to the CI of the company, documents get uploaded and videos and live streams get configured.

Keynotes and Webcasts: The exhibitors can get more air time for valuable presentation slots to introduce their own products and services. This can be a live stream or a pre-recorded video.

Enforced online marketing: The exhibitors, their booths and keynotes can be promoted with online campaigns before the event. During the event the attention of the visitors can be attracted using contests or competitions.

Lead generation: After the show exhibitors are given access to various reports. These reports can be used for lead generation and marketing operations.


Administration

The simple administration of “Virtual Events” enables quick setup. It is also possible to run several events at the same time.

Create & Manage: Each event has a lobby, a networking lounge and a webcast auditorium. The layout for these rooms is flexibie and can be modified through templates by the operator.

Exhibitor Halls: Each event can have as many exhibitor halls as necessary. Each hall can have up to nine booths. The administrator can define the design of the halls.

Exhibitor Booths: The adminstrator can assign exhibitors to booths. He can also define the exact position of the booth in a hall. Furthermore he can define layout, color and logo of the booths.


Functions of the booth

The operator as well as the exhibitor can change important settings.

Content such as logos, company images, news, downloads and company videos can be added and changed at anytime.

The booth owner can manage all important information regarding the company in their company profile, which can be reused with the next trade fair.

The booth can display either a video or a live stream of a camera. These can easily be switched allowing for both real-time presentations.

Employees of the company can be assigned as administrators in the company profile. Staff can also be added without adminstrative rights and their images can be uploaded.

Each booth shows live the visitors/representatives who are currently viewing a booth. Visitors can contact exhibitors or other visitors in realtimethrough the online chat.

Visitors can leave a note and call back request at the booth if they want. The staff can view these “business cards” and receive email alerts when new business cards are created.

Various reports are available


Webcast Auditorium

In the webcast Auditorium webcasts, keynotes and other presentations take place. This can be real-time content or pre-recorded videos. Operators can comfortably adapt the contents.

Vendor directory and vendor search

Vendor search

The vendor search allows users to create their personal and individual search inquiry through several explicit categories. The applicable searching categories can be modified for each portal, therefore it is possible to create the perfect criteria’s according to clients requirements.

The vendor search returns a list of appropriate vendors.

If the customer wants to get in touch with a company, he just has to leave his business card at the company profile. If you are visiting a Virtual Event you can leave your business card directly at the exhibitor’s booth.

Company profiles and competence profiles

Company profile

Vendors can fill out their profile and showcase all relevant information: Products and services, brochures, marketing material, references, partners, offices, fairs, contact, news, logos and documents for download.

Vendors can write specific description, contact information, logo and a video. Users can browse the company profile and find relevant contact information quickly. If the vendor runs a network group it will be highlighted as well.

Vendors can easily see all profile visitors and leave business cards.


Competence profile

Vendors can categorize themselves to showcase their competences in the given market.

All categories can be defined by you as the platform owner.

The categories are search filters in the vendor search.

Such filters can be: Company type, industry focus, amount of employees, certificates and expertise.


Vendor profile and content management system

Vendors and companies can maintain their profile and add their own content using a simple content management system.

This allows them to create and manage their own articles. These articles can contain rich-media content such as documents, videos, audio, blogs and link to external content like their own website content.


Google maps integrated

Vendors can add a logo, a picture or a video. They can also add their Google Maps position to put themselves on the Vendor map.

Closed network groups with blogs, forums, more …

Network groups help to promote the community

Network groups allow vendors to create their own unique business communications and collaboration network within your community.

Network groups allow private communication between its group members via:

Blog postings Forum Discussions Events Files & documents Online meetings

Users can easily join groups and subscribe and get in touch with the vendor.

Premium memberships

Company membership

SITEFORUM offers automated processes to sell and manage large amounts of memberships. In B2B social networks, such memberships usually belong to the company, not to the individual.

The company buys the membership and up to [10] people of the same company can get premium functionality.

Premium memberships

Automated membership processes

SITEFORUM offers automated processes to allow platform owners to handle large amounts of memberships:

• Functions for users to buy the membership• Processes to automatically assign premium rights• Processes to renew memberships• Processes to automate payments• Allow members to download their invoices• Allow members to change their payment information

Webcasts, Video Conferencing, Online Meetings

Webinars & Online meetings

Webcasts and webinars are great lead generators.

The Netviewer integration enables users to start online meetings, video conferences and desktop-sharing sessions directly from network groups, virtual trade fair stands and company profiles.

Other users and participants can be invited quickly.

Visual real-time communication via the Internet drives productivity within enterprises and project groups and cuts down on unproductive travel time and costs.

Combined with social networking functions, online meetings, product presentations and webinars optimise lead generation and leverage higher sales rates.

Webcasts, Video Conferencing, Online Meetings

Online meetings

Presenters can transfer their screens live to the computers of participants, present ideas and demonstrate products, as well as share videos, texts, spread sheets, graphics and many other types of documents.

With the added feature of video conferencing, participants can also see each other, and audio communication is available in the form of VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) or teleconference facilities.

Automated payment processes, PCI compliance

Payment processes

SITEFORUM includes automated ways to collect payments from credit cards or wire transfer. This can be used to run large membership networks that get charged once per month or several times per year.

SITEFORUM’s infrastructure and processes has been certified by the Payment Card industry and are certified as “PCI compliant”. SITEFORUM works together with leading security companies such as McAfee to keep its infrastructure and data secure.

Job board, career portals

Job board

A Job board component is planned and will be released shortly.

It allows vendors and companies to post jobs or link to job postings on their own site.

A job search allows job seekers to find relevant jobs, fill out an application and set alerts.

Job seekers can immediately get in touch with the company via the Virtual tradeshow module.

They can schedule and run an interview online.

Web: www.siteforum.comEmail: [email protected]: +49 (361) 666 15810

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How to commercialize your community

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