How Businesses Can Benefit from Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is the idea of collecting work, opinions, and information from a team of people through the internet. This approach allows businesses to collaborate with people with diverse thoughts and skills from across the globe. Therefore, companies can benefit from crowdsourcing in many aspects.

Positioning Businesses for Success and Brand Promotion

Market research plays a critical role in the development phase of technology or a product. For valuable contributions from the crowd, entrepreneurs should adopt an open innovation approach, and digital crowdsourcing mediums will allow people to collaborate on a project anytime, anywhere.

Moreover, entrepreneurs can leverage crowdsourcing to market their brands. For example, director and writer Rob Thomas understands the effectiveness of crowdsourcing. After years of funding attempts for his project, crowdsourcing enabled him to raise millions of dollars within hours. 

LG Electronics Inc. also utilizes crowdsourcing to develop its advanced phone model. The brand received tremendous publicity after releasing a challenge that attracted people worldwide, from which the corporation chose the winner long after launching its new model. 

A Hands-Off Approach and New Perspective 

While CEOs and managers have numerous resources, they seem to struggle with time management. During a standard research and development project, managers have to oversee the project to ensure efficiency and meet deadlines. With crowdsourcing, the supervision revolves only around developing the challenge and allowing global innovators to complete tasks. This means they no longer have to monitor the team as they execute their roles. 

Often, some employees may demonstrate bias on your business. However, the crowd will recommend a new viewpoint to the issues your business is struggling with. Sometimes all your business requires is a closer assessment to determine the gap hindering your progress. By adopting crowdsourcing, companies encourage people from various parts of the world with varying experiences, perspectives, and ideologies.  

Acquiring Brand Ambassadors and Attracting Potential Employees 

When companies use crowdsourcing to develop an enthusiasm for their innovation, participants will be willing to collaborate as ambassadors or even employees. For example, suppose an organization distributes shirts for product testing. 

The product promoters don the shirts while executing their roles and end up becoming brand ambassadors. Businesses can also leverage open innovation to attract potential employees and get feedback on their products.

The Crowdsourcing Data Analysis

Crowdsourcing also allows businesses to identify and interact with their dedicated customers and fans. Take the My Starbucks Idea platform, for example. Apart from providing excellent new ideas, crowdsourcing allows businesses to collect and evaluate participant data. In this case, Starbucks can also access valuable customer profile data like their preferred communication mediums, demographics, and their preference from the products they offer.

Sweet Tips From Ally:

Effective crowdsourcing can allow business owners to gain important customer insights that are critical for growth and scaling. However, before choosing crowdsourcing as a long-term strategy, there are a few things to consider. You risk a loss of image if the idea or product you wish to convey to the crowd is only allegedly innovative. Crowdsourcing also isn't always predictable, so you must be prepared for any eventuality. This risk can be reduced when you have an experienced partner by your side.