Peers Over Beers - Community Experts Podcast

What are your KPI's that you should share back to your stakeholders is the key question that we try to address in this episode. Michael and Chris get a bit deeper than usual on key metrics and core KPI's for community.

- Linking current accounts / customers in the community
- Engagement and linking that into your CRM and tie it to renewals, upsell and cross sell

What is Peers Over Beers - Community Experts Podcast?

B2B Community Strategist Chris Detzel is your host for this fun and straight shooting podcast for enterprise community leaders / managers and digital savvy professionals. With easy and natural inquisitive banter, your host will tackle hard issues facing community leaders and managers in their day-to-day struggles, and yes, sometimes over a beer. From starting new communities, digitally transforming enterprise culture, moderation, and globalization techniques are all up for discussion.

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"00:00.-6 Michael Hello and welcome to another episode of peers of peers I'm 1 of your hosts michael sandoal nice to see you again. Chris I hope you're doing well oh very good. Well yes yes"
"00:03.5 cdetzel And I'm your second host chris detzel I'm doing well man how about you."
"00:16.9 cdetzel Oh my gosh."
"00:17.4 Michael Messed up my knee this past weekend doing chores which means don't do chores. Ah that was the first problem second problem is getting old. Ah yeah"
"00:25.0 cdetzel That's your first problem right."
"00:33.8 cdetzel Um"
"00:37.0 Michael But that is an enormous amount of walking which I'm totally up for it every year this year I don't know so I'm I'm kind of bummed that I don't know if I'll a chance to go. But it's it was over the weekend I couldn't do a damn thing."
"00:47.0 cdetzel Is it that bad or."
"00:53.4 cdetzel Ah."
"00:56.3 Michael I couldn't walk I can put pressure on it I had to go to the doctor and get you know Steroid shots and like and when I do not to sound you know a whinging thing but whenever I get stupid steroids I get very hot and flush and it's verynoying. Um"
"01:00.7 cdetzel Oh wow."
"01:07.6 cdetzel Okay"
"01:16.1 Michael Probably they more lamenting the fact that I'm going to have to go to a knee doc and do all that fun stuff I hate doing that anyway. Tis since you asked. Ah."
"01:21.7 cdetzel Yeah"
"01:27.9 Michael How do you? How do you prevent your any I mean running. Do you ever get him."
"01:41.6 cdetzel Um"
"01:55.0 Michael Yeah"
"01:59.8 cdetzel Kind of my knees start to hurt a little bit I did have surgery on my knee a couple years ago and um"
"02:02.0 Michael 3"
"02:17.3 cdetzel Five percent of the time you know"
"02:19.8 Michael No."
"02:35.1 Michael Yeah"
"02:36.0 cdetzel Biney down wrong or something just I mean just's not you know? So um"
"02:52.4 Michael Yeah"
"02:58.2 cdetzel Yeah"
"03:17.3 Michael Um"
"03:18.0 cdetzel Here on peers over beers. So first question and and probably the 1 will cover all this entire episode because it deserves this own episode. You know what are your key things for a community manager to track."
"03:26.1 Michael And."
"03:32.4 Michael Yes."
"03:36.5 cdetzel And which are the kpis you should share back to the value of a community to your stakeholders I know you would and we've sort of talked about metrics in the past but not really like this."
"03:41.4 Michael Um"
"03:50.5 Michael Yeah"
"04:00.3 cdetzel And."
"04:09.9 Michael Ah"
"04:13.5 cdetzel Yep."
"04:23.3 cdetzel I'm gonna let you cover that first but I want to say this with the ah I I think it I think it depends on the executive some executives so when you first start a community I was I was always under the impression that you should just report back just 2 metrics."
"04:24.9 Michael Go ahead. Won't you go and do well then go ahead starting to it."
"04:40.7 cdetzel You know"
"05:00.2 Michael And what what do he did not like oh oh oh oh? Okay"
"05:19.6 cdetzel Hundred percent What you're going to say but it's It's very ah"
"05:25.5 Michael I agree with you a dependent leader. Um"
"05:36.4 cdetzel Yeah."
"05:43.0 Michael If they're advanced then they understand it completely. It's less you have to explain versus you're going to have to now bring them along where things like registration to kind of show activity. They'll get it because it's something they know."
"05:45.5 cdetzel Yeah"
"05:58.8 cdetzel Yeah"
"06:01.0 Michael Facebook requires registrations right? exactly correct and there's some other things we could talk about but then that's 1 area the second if they're in the middle and you can get sophisticated with like how much Seo is driving some of your backlinks into your product how you're actually driving product conversion loyalty metrics."
"06:14.9 cdetzel Are."
"06:20.2 Michael And then sounds like your boss may fit more in the first or second quadrant but he's definitely more in the up. He just wants it all and when you have very advanced leaders. You can talk in terms of um"
"06:35.0 cdetzel Yeah."
"06:39.8 Michael Thing about how it's part of the support organization is broadening your reach and making it easier for the for the enterprise to do business. You know it becomes a loyalty mark but you need a lot of time to get there."
"06:50.0 cdetzel I think also let yeah"
"08:38.3 Michael Ah"
"08:43.0 cdetzel So basically how do you look at or not how but our customer success managers own. Um ah accounts so counts that have been sold to does that make sense so they're they're an existing customer these existing customers are right now are owned by 1 at least."
"08:52.3 Michael And head here."
"09:01.7 cdetzel Yeah"
"09:02.9 Michael Yeah."
"09:08.7 Michael A."
"09:21.5 Michael It does now. Do you account is this a accounts or context."
"09:21.7 cdetzel That's 1 metric does that make sense."
"09:27.2 cdetzel Ah"
"09:35.7 Michael On the community. Okay got to got to get it."
"09:47.1 cdetzel Engagement. So Can we then you know push So This is a little bit customization customization. So We use higher logic So Can we push an api over into Salesforce that links user engagement to those users on the account and then. Over time show that because they use the community or at least you can say Community is a influencer um to say they renew more. They renew at higher rates and they um ah buy more cross sell upsell those kinds of things. That's kind of a golden thing does that make sense."
"10:27.4 Michael Yeah"
"10:41.4 cdetzel Um"
"10:46.4 Michael We've done all this work now in the community. Can we tie that to ah a real hard business metric and the hard business Metric. You just mentioned was ah which is the product ah call so increase in Riis Ah I think you call it license renewal. Ah"
"11:11.1 cdetzel it's it's 1 is do do customers renew at higher rates so renewals at higher rates than do they renew more. Do they buy more so there's 2 different things there when they renew um and ah."
"11:15.9 Michael Yep."
"11:20.3 Michael Oh it's okay"
"11:28.9 cdetzel And um"
"11:35.0 Michael Yeah"
"11:50.1 cdetzel Yeah"
"11:56.7 Michael Yep"
"12:04.6 cdetzel Yeah."
"12:12.4 Michael Your senior managers to this level of thought."
"12:14.6 cdetzel Um"
"12:19.5 Michael Um"
"12:30.0 Michael Yeah."
"12:33.9 cdetzel That data now he understands that you can't easily go get it right now because you know today the community is disconnected from all business systems. so um yeah so I mean it's going to be hard. You know we use excel and then come up with kind of. Linked hey these are the accounts and here's what's in the community and here's this big excel sheet and I get all confused and shit. Um"
"12:54.9 Michael Interesting."
"13:08.1 Michael Oops I think we had a little pause Sorry about that. It's sorry um"
"13:11.2 cdetzel That's her all right."
"13:26.0 Michael These metrics sound very much like a customer ah like that's part of his metrics for everything everything he's doing in his program. You being 1 of them is where that's got to be ultimately"
"13:33.8 cdetzel Yeah"
"13:44.7 Michael Yeah"
"13:59.4 cdetzel Yeah"
"14:03.0 Michael Um"
"14:20.2 cdetzel Yeah."
"14:22.9 Michael Ah"
"14:28.9 cdetzel Yet."
"14:41.3 Michael Current buy if you will and if they've cross sold so show you. There's data for all 3 of those and then after they sign up on the community did any of those go up and you have a little bit longer. So."
"14:52.2 cdetzel Yeah."
"14:57.9 Michael Scale for some of your renewals. It may not be I don't know if it's a yearly renewal or."
"14:59.1 cdetzel Yeah"
"15:04.8 Michael Yeah"
"15:09.0 cdetzel Yeah"
"15:23.5 Michael Is to target users so you can say hey who are the who are the members who are the contacts now you probably do a bike account that are going to be renewing in the next year and"
"15:35.7 cdetzel Mm yeah."
"15:38.8 Michael And using that as a base point to say hey let's maybe go sell the community as a place for that and then you can use that as you can use that to see whether or not within the year you were able to influence your decision more so than average a sp you need a data person to kind of help with you define it."
"15:49.8 cdetzel Yeah"
"15:56.8 Michael I."
"16:00.4 Michael Um"
"16:09.5 cdetzel You know you can't be all things right? you you definitely need to understand the data and and understand kind of what he wants I got that? Ah"
"16:22.4 Michael You don't need to be yeah"
"16:29.3 cdetzel So that wants to do it. You know I can I can explain exactly to him what I need and potentially how to go get it. You know so."
"16:42.2 Michael Ah"
"16:50.4 cdetzel Yeah"
"17:02.1 cdetzel Um"
"17:02.2 Michael Company site is it my challenges in the past have been that they'll tend to use their personal information on the community versus their professional information on the site. Okay."
"17:13.2 cdetzel Sometimes So sometimes that happens but I do ask for their work email and a lot of them put their work email in there now we do have this thing we are a master data management company and we do this thing called match and merge."
"17:20.8 Michael Hopefully they'll merge. Yeah"
"17:29.2 Michael Oh you can use your own technology. Ah."
"17:29.9 cdetzel And so it looks at even we could I'm not saying we will right now but that is the goal is to say you know Chris Detzel or see detzel at Yahoo versus Chris Dot Detzel at Realtio can then see that hey these are a match and emerge that you know. Are similar and they need to merge so they're 1 person and so we do have that technology and that's what we do on a daily basis and it's a big piece of it right is to kind of get pushed anyways won't go into that. But so that over time can be done."
"17:53.5 Michael Okay."
"18:03.6 Michael Okay"
"18:10.7 cdetzel Um"
"18:22.0 Michael The other thing I was going to add to that is what does the business want and and you said it without you know without me stating it but your immediate manager is looking for ah signs around how well they're keeping loyalty resale of like licenses."
"18:23.8 cdetzel Um."
"18:32.2 cdetzel That's right."
"18:41.9 Michael And Crossell Upsell which is very all fair metrics and those the winds you be are maniacal for you Have to do it. Overall we have to prove that the community itself is adding a value and I just don't know what that value would be Yeah"
"18:57.0 cdetzel Short-term 3"
"19:01.0 Michael Ah"
"19:13.8 cdetzel Yeah"
"19:18.3 Michael Because as cost deflection is what you're doing but that's reducing cost I Want to be in the game that adds profit and that's where I look at new people coming in exclusively for the community."
"19:35.9 cdetzel That are not current customers leads. Yeah."
"19:38.3 Michael That's that are not a contact. Yeah"
"19:45.0 cdetzel So that's another conversation is you know when I was at imperva and I would like to start doing that here. You know you know sometimes the business isn't ready to do certain things just just not. But but you know 1 thing that I want to get to and and I started to do that."
"19:54.3 Michael Exactly This is all about journey and evolution. Yeah."
"20:03.6 cdetzel Push that in Imperba and I would've got there if I wouldve stayed because I had all the infrastructure and then put together. Um was when a new user and that's that's why I have a hard time doing just sso so because sso for New Users doesn't exist right? So how do you build that into the."
"20:13.9 Michael No."
"20:21.7 cdetzel Technically"
"20:36.1 Michael Yes"
"20:40.5 cdetzel Technically"
"21:05.0 Michael Ah."
"21:14.7 cdetzel You know you have that easy way for login and everything else. But also when a new user from another company that you don't have. There's 2 pieces to this too is it logs into the community then in my mind it goes to like a crm and is and it's looked at as a lead. Salespeople can work that lead but then they also have access to community right? They can post. They can look. They can do whatever they want the other piece to that though is expansion on the um"
"21:37.3 Michael Yep yep"
"21:51.5 cdetzel Come to our community webinars that come get on the community that aren't even in Salesforce at all that are current people right? So I'm expanding that account in big ways already like that's that's a big ad you know to say dude I have like 25 different users from this 1 account. You know that only 2 or 3 of them are in Salesforce we never even had this before. So how do we automatically push that into salesforce and push you know put that as kind of a follow-up for maybe it's a salesperson or something like that to say hey here's a potential expansion opportunity."
"22:14.4 Michael Fit."
"22:30.4 cdetzel Go crossell right? So there are 2 pieces to that even on the existing side and the non-existing side."
"22:35.3 Michael Yeah I Actually think those are brilliant thoughts Chris just from hearing what you're talking about it sounds like there is an old school mentality about boots on the ground getting people signed up and then throwing them over to run a maintenance and then you get a login to your. Customer account and you're off to the races. What the companies needs to focus on a part of their strategy should be focused on how do you acquire new customers digitally and then put an egg and ah and a yes and apply a an identity management that arcs their."
"23:01.9 cdetzel Absolutely This is it."
"23:13.3 cdetzel It."
"23:13.5 Michael A customer journey from lead cultivation all the way to a sale and a crm attached to this will help push that person through then you have a single sign on for your community because that becomes part of your presale. Potentially."
"23:18.2 cdetzel Yeah"
"23:38.7 Michael Yeah."
"23:46.1 cdetzel You know you know because sales already has you know a way to look at leads and and funnel leads and things like that. The thing I would want is is it for to say community lead or something like that that identifies that the community brought this lead in you know"
"24:21.5 Michael Oh they're grading. Yeah"
"24:24.4 cdetzel Another point and then it's like oh this guy's ready this this guy's ready. We need to call him. You know it means it's a really you know"
"24:41.3 Michael No"
"24:43.3 cdetzel You know what? I mean like yeah"
"25:05.5 Michael Yeah"
"25:09.8 cdetzel Ali."
"25:15.6 cdetzel Um"
"25:24.0 Michael But again"
"25:35.5 cdetzel Yeah."
"25:43.5 Michael Period views and some other things that kind of tell you what else is going on. Um yeah I Know that's why I was like okay I'm gonna stop because I could just go into another area I think we answered the question roundabout"
"25:45.8 cdetzel Yeah"
"26:01.1 cdetzel Look."
"26:02.9 Michael Like the whole value part. It's really just down to what is your company doing and I agree your magic plays a big portion of that."
"26:07.0 cdetzel Yeah"
"26:12.0 Michael Yeah."
"26:24.7 cdetzel New threads and replies. Um"
"26:43.0 Michael Yeah."
"26:43.0 cdetzel That's the same as users or yeah"
"27:00.3 Michael Man."
"27:02.4 cdetzel So employees versus partners versus prospects versus customers. Those are the things I look at and I report into my executives."
"27:05.8 Michael Yeah"
"27:13.3 Michael So it's funny as you're going through that list. So the way I look at it is a bit more broad. So as a kpi person I put down 3 areas to focus on 1 is you need to provide a scale to your metrics. So this is going to be the the things you're familiar with views page views."
"27:29.5 cdetzel Yeah."
"27:33.3 Michael Bounce rates all that kind of stuff because that they already here 2 you need an engagement metric and you mentioned a lot of the engagement metrics and I agree with them. The third is on a member metric. So you mentioned a few of those 2 and it's funny because as you're going to the list I wanted to say scale engage member because you were."
"27:36.3 cdetzel Yeah."
"27:50.5 cdetzel Um"
"27:53.0 Michael Walking through that already. But that's just how you would present it and then going back to the original question on sub 2 which is and then you need 1 metric to shows the major value to the business and where we were before we were using seo to product sale because I can show that."
"28:08.1 cdetzel Yeah"
"28:12.7 Michael The influence of the community is can influence the purchase of a product way more than anything you're doing on your site which is share of wallet increase and it took us time to get to that metric so they understood it. But once they understood it I reported all the time to show the increase over time. But anyway."
"28:26.3 cdetzel At."
"28:32.4 Michael That hopefully makes sense."
"28:33.9 cdetzel Yeah"
"28:45.6 Michael Yep"
"28:52.3 cdetzel Yeah"
"28:56.2 Michael Correct."
"29:03.9 Michael Yep."
"29:11.6 cdetzel Things we did and ah Rexel it was just nobody I don't think many people appreciated that you know like."
"29:16.9 Michael No"
"29:21.8 cdetzel It is ridiculously solid like it's much content. There's I mean if I were to go back there man I would I know so much more now than I did obviously then I feel like that I could just make way better impact. Maybe I can't you know that is a tough organization but still I mean it was just."
"29:30.8 Michael Yeah."
"29:38.7 Michael It. Ah."
"29:41.5 cdetzel But we did I've never done that before again you like it's like dude I Want to go do that again."
"29:44.3 Michael Yeah"
"29:49.1 cdetzel Um"
"29:59.9 Michael Also true. Yeah."
"30:06.8 Michael But know what I mean last night. Ah."
"30:11.0 cdetzel Auto tagging I think now is ridiculously awesome. You know like that I'm like that would be. You know you just put in a a thing of tags. You know that you know of and then it just Boom auto tags anytime you know"
"30:14.3 Michael Yes."
"30:29.5 Michael Um"
"30:30.0 cdetzel Boom it? Ah anyways"
"30:52.7 Michael Right? yeah."
"30:53.8 cdetzel Know so but they're made to to click something or you know push something so it could say realtio platform they they'd have a click on realty a platform. It creates a hashtag realtio platform. So at least you could have a 10 top. You don't want to do that many because it's just like a dropdown."
"31:03.4 Michael Now it needs to be like a zeitgeist of things. Yeah"
"31:11.9 cdetzel Yeah"
"31:22.0 Michael Like me. Ah."
"31:30.9 cdetzel You know it's just so you know Anyways"
"31:36.3 Michael It's it should be just a show and like people just don't tag shit so that annoying."
"31:49.8 cdetzel You know it's just sorry. That's just 1 of your jobs tagging."
"31:50.9 Michael Ah"
"31:55.7 cdetzel I Like it tag your shit on the community all right? michael."
"32:05.7 cdetzel And I'm the other host Chris Stzel All right."