Building Online Communities - A Case Study

The benefits to building your own online community are numerous and powerful.  For many, simply the shift from the offline to the online - brings massive opportunity for scale and flexibility.  LTF are fast becoming one of the leading agencies in the design, development and support of bespoke Online Communities, and talk here about a recent success story. The Heroines Quest - The first online program for women leaders by ASPIRE and Dr Samantha Collins, named 'One of the Top 10 Coaches' and 'One of the Top 200 Women to Impact Business and Industry' by Her Majesty, the Queen of England.

Our Brief: Long-standing client, ASPIRE, is a US and UK based award- winning leader in executive coaching, leadership development, consultancy, events and research with specific expertise in regard to gender diversity, which was founded over 10 years ago by Dr Samantha Collins, named 'One of the Top 10 Executive Coaches' and 'One of the Top 200 Women to Impact Business and Industry' by Her Majesty, the Queen of England. In 2011, Aspire came to LTF with the spark of an idea. To “virtualise” everything they’d achieved in the offline world, and take it online to the widest possible community, online.  Aspire wanted to build an Online Community for Women the World over, from Senior Execs in L.A., to women in an Afghan village. To allow all of them to experience, share, and achieve results from the Aspire methods, programs, mentors and challenges.   Our Solution LTF worked with the Aspire teams both in the UK and the US to scope, design, develop, test, promote and support a robust, contemporary, flexible platform on which the brand new Heroines Quest community could thrive.  The site is built with a full Content Management Suite for the Aspire team, and comes complete with a range of custom reporting tools, resource directories, and various features and functionality for both the Client and their users.  Featuring everything from Member Profiles, Discussion Areas, Resource libraries, Webinars, Blogs, Campaigns, Challenges, and much more – The Heroines Quest represents some of our best technology for the construction and support of a thriving Online Community. Highlights Social Networking: Member Profiles, Members Directory, and Dicussion Forums – all enable the “HQers” to connect, share, and discover like- minds. Rolling Themes: The powerful Content System allows the Aspire team to prepare and upload Monthly Themes, Challenges, and Resources MONTHS in advance, knowing that the system will automatically roll content online, and archive the previous set, at midnight on the 1st of the Month. Custom Design: The completely custom approach to the design of the site, allowed us to truly give Heroines Quest it’s own personality. Return On Investment Participation: The HQ was run as a closed beta, during which time over 1,000 women joined the program. Financial: The HQ has a unique payment model where members contribute an amount of their choice each month. In under 6 months, this rose to £40,000. Brand Reach: The HQ has featured across all Aspire programs, and at real- world events. It inspires and engages at all levels, and has raised the profile of The Aspire Foundation (Aspire’s Charity).