In December 2017, we invited our newsletter readers to participate in a short online survey to find out whether we are on the right track, and what needed improving. After three months, we looked at your responses and are happy to report there is an overwhelming satisfaction with how well TPBO is doing at meeting your needs. Even at the lowest satisfaction point, 17% of respondents stated their needs were met “somewhat well”.
The TPBO community also seems to be happy with the website and newsletter, stating they are a good source of information, with interesting articles that are easy to read. A third of you even strongly agreed they were inspiring!
Both the website and newsletter are also considered a trusted, independent information source.
It was good to hear that a third of respondents already actively share our platform with your colleagues – and we hope this number increases.
You also stated you have previously connected with someone TPBO interviewed. As for the community itself, it seems to be made up mostly of consultants, followed closely by academics and researchers, place managers, and university lecturers.
From the topics you found most interesting, it is evident there is good scope for TPBO to put more focus on university and training opportunities (our Place Brand Academy serves this purpose), as well as for pointing out relevant events (we offer a list of upcoming events and conferences here).
TPBO cheekily asked what would the respondents miss the most were it to disappear over night. The respondents overwhelmingly valued expert insights and advice, as well as case studies and examples.
However, closely following this was belonging to the platform itself, referred to as a “community” by a few, and a “unique connector” by others (spanning between academia and practice). This shows a serious potential for us to continue developing as a community where people feel proud to belong.
We heard some of your concerns as well. There were minor mentions of our bi-weekly email newsletter being too frequent (we might trial a monthly version), as well as the limited amount of content freely available (remember: all our articles are freely accessible for the first 7 days, and discounts are available).
More multimedia content (on our to do list!) or the possibility to track particular themes was put forward as a suggestion for improvement (you can easily subscribe to RSS feeds of specific categories by adding /feed to the end of the url. For example, if interested in city branding, you’d access the feed via http://placebrandobserver.com/category/city-branding/feed/).
The best reviews came at the very end. When asked about ways to improve the services offered, the majority responded TPBO is already doing great and should continue in its way.
If you weren’t able to participate in the survey but would like to tell us how we do or what we could do better, we’d love to hear from you.
