Here are 5 ways to think about the success of an online research community:

1. Progress & Level of Understanding

Did the research community deliver on the objectives you were trying to achieve? What did you learn about your customers? What did your customers share over the life of the community and would this have been possible without the community venue?

2. Replacement or Supplement

Were you able to effectively use the community venue to supplement, refine, or replace some of your non-community research needs over time? How much cost savings did you realize as a result?

3. Internal Stakeholder Satisfaction

How do your internal teams and stakeholders feel about the output from your community research? Did it give them access to insights and ideas to help them be more effective -  compared to the other types of research?  Did having this ongoing venue make you more efficient and speed up product/research cycles internally?

4. Cost/Benefit

Thinking about the output from your community, could you have found this information through another research method? If you were to try to get the information somewhere else, how much time and money would it have required?

5. Affinity & Loyalty

How do your customers feel as a result of participating in this research? Do they feel differently about your brand and the direction of your organization? What are some ways you can use community tools with a wider group of customers in the future?