Business Marketing: Autodesk’s UberCool Online Communities

Finding cool companies that are putting Web 2.0 tools to work in their business marketing is fun for me.  (So I’m easily entertained.) I love sharing this stuff.   Autodesk is a F1000 design software and services company that is serious about the new, new marketing.  They’re having two-way (markets-as-conversations) online dialogues with their customers.

A highly successful company (2006 Fortune Magazine’s Top 100 Places to Work and 2006 Forbes’ Best Big Companies), Autodesk is enhancing their marketing capabilities by creating content-rich online communities for its major markets:  manufacturing, civil engineering and entertainment  media.  Autodesk is giving its customers the tools to connect, communicate and collaborate online, right at the Autodesk site.  (Image below is animation artists’ community site, called AREA or link to it here.)  (You can click on this image to see it full size.)

How popular are Autodesk’s online communities?  A corporate press release dated 11-28-06, reads in part, “… Autodesk Manufacturing Community site is driven by peer feedback and peer contributions. Members are extensively involved in posting, ranking, submitting, commenting and participating; and the site currently receives more than 10,000 page views and 200 new members per week … “

Results: What are the results?  According to the same press release, “With 2.5 million users, the Autodesk Manufacturing Community is one of the world’s largest communities of designers in the manufacturing industry…” (Link here to their Manufacturing Community.)

The new online conversation Autodesk is conducting with its customers includes, blogs, discussion forums, peer networks for like-minded folks (manufacturing, 3D animation developers, and more), downloads and free trials.  For example, the Manufacturing Community and the Civil Engineering Community each offer user contributed tips and “how tos” in addition to industry-specific blogs.

That means lots of opportunity for Autodesk to have conversations with, listen to and collaborate with their audiences.  See my earlier post here about the 5 Business Marketing Reasons to Build An Online Community.

So, what are the takeways for smaller companies from Autodesk?

Listen harder.  Given their accomplishments, Autodesk has clearly been listening to their customers all along and are now listening harder.   By establishing separate communities for each product, they’re adding deeper online customer conversations to the way they do business.  And they’re learning more about their customers in the process.

Increase loyalty. By offering a resource in the form of an online community and asking for feedback on how the community should evolve, Autodesk is bound to increase the loyalty of their customers. Two hundred new members a week represents a terrific increase in loyalty.

Start small with a blog.  Small is good.  If you don’t have the budget for an Autodesk-style community, you can begin to connect and communicate with your customers by using a blog. Share information. Invite your customers to share their tips and how-tos and submit content. Start the conversation.  Why wait for another company in your space to be the first to start the conversation?

Let me know your thoughts on small companies starting online communities or blogs.  (To post a comment, just click below, and enter your comment.)