Case Studies
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Audience and Customer Analysis for a Publication
Sector: Media
Problem: A publication with online and paper editions wanted to better understand how to extend their reach beyond their current audience by better understanding the needs, desires, and use cases of online and paper print media as well as needs for multimedia content.
Approach: We conducted a large-scale national study with a focus in the key markets of the publisher to identify segments of the potential audience that most align with the values and services available
What We Discovered: We found five audience segments of which the largest was most aligned to the publication's value and services and under-served by their current marketing activities. The publication adjusted their communications (including positioning) and spending to better align with where this segment "lived." In doing so, they almost doubled their monthly audience across all channels.

Technology Services Company's Brand Strategy
Sector: Technology Services
Problem: A technology services company wanted to better develop their brand communication strategy as they pivoted from one core services to a new set of core services in order to generate stronger growth in the marketplace.
Approach: Talisman Insights conducted a series of in-depth interviews to explore the needs of the marketplace and subsequently conducted a quantitative survey to measure the preponderance of those needs as well as using statistical methods to better understand underlying relationships between stated and unstated drivers of preference.
What We Discovered: We found that decision makers for external technology service providers have a core set of personal needs that drive brand affinity and brand preference. We were able to recommend the development of potential brand strategies that capitalize on those needs as part of the overall messaging platform.

Professional Development Services New Product Research
Sector: Professional Services
Problem: A Chicago-based talent accelerator wanted to develop a seminar product that would help them scale from their live, in-person seminars towards a more online (potentially self-service) approach in order to launch nationwide. Additionally, they wanted to understand both the perspectives of the program participants and decision makers at organizations that would sponsor the attendees.
Approach: Talisman Insights developed a two-part qualitative study that involved focus groups with participants in the original in-person seminar and those who participated in pilots of the online seminar. We also conducted a qualitative-focused survey of decision makers for external professional development services at enterprise-level organizations throughout the US.
What We Discovered: The participants and the companies possessed different end goals, which required different marketing communications to address properly. However, it would be possible to use a B2C marketing campaign to help influence B2B purchase. Innovation strategies and B2B marketing needed to revolve around the ideas of how the participants' need states around taking control of their careers. Further work around iterating against unscalable but desired elements of the seminar experience was recommended.

Audience Analysis for a Housing and Shelter Charity
Sector: Non-profits
Problem: An organization that helps those without homes or shelter wanted to better understand how to connect with current and potential donors at a more emotional level to help drive their donor outreach strategy.
Approach: We designed a segmentation study based on prior feedback about why people gave and assessed communication channels and their desire to serve in their community.
What We Discovered: The client was able to redesign messaging strategy to engage each group, based on lookalikes to their socio-demographics as well as implement a multi-channel media strategy. They engaged with their marketing agency to refocus messaging towards community actions and creating specific calls to action for their donors to enable volunteerism as well as in-kind and monetary donations.

Consumer Technology Company Communication During Ordering Process
Sector: Consumer Technology
Problem: A consumer technology enterprise wanted to understand the risk for customer alienation during the entire order experience and begin to revise the customer experience during shopping and while waiting for product arrival. Furthermore, they wanted to understand similarities and differences between their consumer audience and the small business audience.
Approach: We worked with the company to run a two-phase quantitative study and a three-phase online qualitative study (via a discussion board). The quantitative study focused on customer experiences during the back-to-school time frame and subsequently the holiday shopping time frame. The qualitative study ran concurrently with phase 1 focused on the return process, phase 2 focused on the order cancellation/re-order process, and phase 3 on shopping during the holiday season.
What We Discovered: There was little risk of customer alienation from the current communications regime though tweaks were possible to increase customer delight. Customers want to see more personalization from the start to finish of the order experience. We also identified opportunities to address a key need of customer (i.e., needing to know when they will have their order in hand). Additionally, we found that some tweaks in the return and cancellation process offer the opportunity to improve the customer experience by making information easier to find and utilize.

Luxury Travel Services Provider
Sector: Hospitality/Travel
Problem: A luxury travel services provider changed its subscription tier structure expecting growth to be stronger than they experienced.
Approach: We designed a two-part qualitative-quantitative study utilizing online discussion board and a discrete choice survey to understand the desires of high spending travelers and assess price elasticity and redesign subscription tiers to minimize cannibalization and grow subscriptions.
What We Discovered: The client underserved a large portion of high spending travelers (those spending $10K to $20K annually). The original tier structure lacked appeal for this group. Adding a value tier was projected to grow subscriptions by 9%. Additionally, consumers in this space (and current subscribers) value the ability to share experiences. Adding an online community as part of membership provided an additional incremental 2% in growth.