In his latest blog, Anthony Shephard-Williams (director) poses 10 questions all things insight community related to his long-standing client Transport for West Midlands (TfWM).
Back in 2020 TfWM commissioned us to set-up, build and manage an online community that was to later be named (by community members themselves) Keep WM Moving! As we enter into our 5th year of the community, we thought it would be a great time to check in with our client (Sarah Bayliss, Human Intelligence Manager at TfWM) and do something a little different – we posed 10 questions all things community related, to get the lowdown on how things have evolved and are going from her point of view.
1. To begin, can you tell us a bit about your role in relation to the Keep WM Moving! online community?
I manage a small market research team in the public sector that specialises in quantitative research and we have worked with Mustard since November 2019 to set up and maintain an online community which currently has 1,500 members.
2. From a client perspective, what are some common challenges in managing long-term online communities, and how do you address them?
We faced a few challenges:
- Making the business case for the community – Fortunately I only had to do this once; for a three-year term – as since then; the outputs from the community’s activities has been visibly, purposeful and well received.
- Maintaining a flow of activities – not only finding activities that are relevant to the business but also interesting for members. We have scheduled research projects that are open to all and weekend flash topics have become frequent events.
- Dissemination – letting people know what good work is being done – be this the client, peers, stakeholders or the community members themselves. In the beginning there were many joint presentations between myself and Mustard to a broad spread of senior management, project teams and external partners – to let them know what was now available.
3. Since we started the community in 2020, what are you most proud of?
Many things:
- that we have more members, actively engaged and more diverse.
- that the business knows about the existence of Mustard and the community -it’s featured in funding bids, it gives us the advantage of being ready to start research activities from the ‘get-go’.
- as word spreads about the community, so do the scope of requests – and the ‘third party’ organisations we are working with.
And I am proud of the members who have given so much of their time to help us understand their view points, design better services and products and produce better plans and policies.
4. How has the community evolved over the past 4 years?
Yes – quite a lot:
- its membership is bigger and more diverse (the result of a number of targeted promotional campaigns).
- activities are more frequent.
- we have changed from a prize draw to a points-based rewards system, off the back of feedback from members. Response rates are higher as a result.
- topics are more varied as more clients from different parts of the business and from external partners ‘buy-in’ to research activities.
5. Are there any specific methods or techniques that have been used on the community that you’ve thought were really creative? Why?
There are a few:
- heat mapping – it’s so easy to understand.
- weekend flash topics – as a concept it’s brilliant (and low cost).
- in person focus groups at our offices – all from an online community!
- flexibility to have mixed methodologies e.g. speaking with people on or off the community and boosting respondents’ diversity where necessary from Mustard’s network of external recruiters.
6. How do you ensure the insights obtained from the community are disseminated and actioned?
The reports from Mustard are always easy to read and informative. We ensure these are disseminated and actioned in a few ways:
- Membership of committees / working groups etc – feeding in evidence to policy makers, operators, elected representatives etc.
- In-house Quarterly Research Newsletter distributed to internal and external partners.
- Project / business case feedback – e.g. Monitoring and Evaluation reporting for other projects will contain community outputs as evidence of what worked / did not work.
7. What are some key factors that have contributed to the longevity and success of our partnership?
The relationship with Mustard – Anthony and the Team is so inspiring and energetic – its infectious. The Community / working with Mustard has widened the skill-set of Human Intelligence (HI) Team and our ability to respond to research requests from our clients. Our ‘unique’ arrangement – with a dedicated member of HI Team working alongside Mustard has allowed for a much more agile working environment and has helped forge a bridge between the participants, Mustard and ourselves.
8. Can you share a success story or a significant impact that the community has achieved?
We’ve had many! Here are a few:
- Local Travel Plan 5 – Citizens input from A New Green Plan engagement in December 2021, through to LTP Plan Review Deep Dives in April 2023 about refining the narrative for the 6 Big Moves to focus groups on Area Strategies in June 2024. [Ensuring the ‘Town hall’ consultation is available and accessible to a broad spread of citizens so they can comment on proposal that would work for them].
- Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022 Travel App Testing and travel demand Messaging Creative testing. [Ensuring that the campaign selected would have maximum impact on the travel habits of people attending and not attending the Games to plan ahead to minimise travel disruption at certain events).
- Levelling Up! Citizens understanding of the terms and national policy. [highlighting misconceptions of the term and its impact on West Midlands]
9. What are some lessons you’ve learned from working with Mustard in terms of creating successful long-term communities?
1) Have a purpose – good content brings better engagement / reduces attrition. Clients can often delay or postpone activities – have a back-up.
2) Be proactive and keep abreast of what is happening ‘on the ground’ We have recently been able to capture the current sentiment of the moment in relation to bus franchising.
3) Keep it engaging and fun – topics and communication with members is done in a friendly engaging way – with topics like ‘The Price is Right!’, Ready Set, Swift Go! – it’s a much friendlier place than I expected.
10. Finally, what advice would you give to other organisations starting their own online community for market research purposes?
Just – do it! But use an expert like Mustard.
You can prepare ahead – we had a database of 7000 citizens to start with – you may have a mailing list that you can invite to join a community.
Think about content…do you have enough? You may want to focus, like we did, on innovative transport services / solutions.
Disseminate and promote widely – promote the insights that the research has uncovered (even if its unfavourable), let external partners use the platform – it all helps with keep engagement going.
If you have any questions about online communities, we’d love to hear from you, feel free to get in touch – anthony.shephard-williams@mustard-research.com.