Persona development through clustering for a global publishing company
How we helped a global scientific publisher build machine learning clustering personas, integrate their CRM and web interaction data, and deliver five actionable reader segments for targeted email campaigns and scalable future use.
Case Study: Persona development through clustering for a global publishing company
Results
Delivered 5 distinct and actionable reader personas to support enhanced email targeting
Enabled a test-ready plan for deployment - including monitoring and optimisation.
Supported future expansion of persona usage across digital channels
Background
A leading global scientific publishing company had attempted to leverage their high-volume datasets to build a deeper understanding of user behaviours. Their most recent project had attempted to create actionable customer personas for email targeting, but had failed due to an in-house skill shortage and the sheer complexity of the data.
Lynchpin stepped in at the Data Design and Build phase and progressed the project through to persona development using machine learning clustering techniques. These personas would be based on a combination of demographic data and website interaction data.
The Objective
To build actionable personas for targeted email marketing incorporating data from multiple different systems.
To use these personas to generate automated targeted marketing emails.
The Lynchpin Approach
Leveraging the breadth of skills within Lynchpin we were able to draw on a combination of data engineering and data science skills to ensure the project could move towards its goal of persona development.
Lynchpin believe in a transparent analytics process. Liaising with the client at regular intervals and sharing insights. This is particularly important for segmentation projects to ensure the final deliverables are actionable within the business.
The Solution
Step 1: Data Integration & Preparation
The data required to gain a full understanding of the customers was contained in many different areas and at various levels of granularity. Lynchpin performed a full audit of the data available and integrated data from multiple sources including back end CRM systems and online web interactions. This data was then prepared for modelling including categorisation of behaviours for more useful insights.
Step 2: Insight
The key step in any profiling project is to truly understand your customers behaviours. Lynchpin performed a deep dive analysis of customers and liaised with the publishing company to link the behaviours seen with the objective of project. In this case, this meant developing readership personas of over 1 million customers across a portfolio of >30 journals.
Step 3: Persona Development
Based on the data available and the solution required by the client, Lynchpin used a clustering technique called Dimensionality Reduction to build the personas. Lynchpin also overlaid business insight that we had gained along the way in relation to interactions by specific professions. This enabled the personas to be usable from a deployment perspective and achieve the overall objective of the client.
The Results
Development of 5 distinct and actionable personas for targeted Marketing Emails with clear understanding of the factors that drive these personas in terms of both the content interest and profession of the customer.
Creation of a test plan for deployment of the personas through email campaigns, monitoring the results to provide further insight and optimisation.
Next step recommendations for utilising the personas in other areas e.g. adapting online content through A/B testing methodologies.
Lynchpin help us unlock the millions of data points we have and turn them into valuable insight, which we use on a daily basis to improve our traffic, customer journey and sales performance. Their data scientists don’t just support our internal data and analytics team, they are genuinely commercial and committed to understanding our business, which means the outputs are always in line with our company strategy!
They have worked alongside us for ten years to support our data maturity and had a major impact in turning us from a company with data, to a data driven decision making company. We value our relationship with Lynchpin and fully expect our partnership to be a longstanding one.John Donnellan, Senior Director of Digital Strategy, Operations & Marketing, Canon EMEA
For over eight years, Lynchpin have provided expert support across the web analytics’ piece for John Lewis Finance. Whether it’s building actionable dashboards, advanced reporting and visualisation, deep dive analytics, data engineering and tagging specs, or designing complex attribution models, Lynchpin prove themselves again and again as highly experienced and competent. They have led and driven our analytics strategy and played an essential role in our business growth. Highly personable, their consultants are well known within the office and I would recommend them as a trusted 3rd party business partner.Adam Taylor, Partner & Web Manager, John Lewis Financial Services
The PRISM model guides organisations and marketers to move towards not just identifying and satisfying customer requirements, but using data and analysis to anticipate and predict their needs.Michelle Goodall, Social Media & Digital Transformation Consultant, Econsultancy
We have partnered with Lynchpin for several years now and they have played a key role not just in delivery of day-to-day and project-based initiatives but also in development of our solution design and data collection architecture. Lynchpin’s depth and breadth of expertise and experience as well as their non-partisan ethos – not being tied to specific solution providers – has enabled us to understand both the benefits and the potential pitfalls of different solutions and designs. As a result we have very solid data quality and that’s reflected in the quality of the insight we are able to serve to the business. The team at Lynchpin are flexible, supportive and great colleagues to have. They are a highly valuable part of the extended LexisNexis team.Michele David, Lead Product Owner, LexisNexis Risk Solutions Group
Over the past 5 years, I have worked almost continuously with Lynchpin on various data engineering and analytics projects. They are adept at navigating complex business requirements and helping you to really ‘look under the bonnet’ and understand the power of your data.
We have a great partnership with the team at Lynchpin, they are a valuable support to our business strategy with their extensive experience and knowledge of data engineering.
Throughout a complex website re-platforming project which combined a standard and subscription customer proposition, Lynchpin helped us build an analytics infrastructure which not only met the brief it also went that extra mile to future-proof us.Michelle Corp, eCommerce Director, Lily’s Kitchen
We have enjoyed working with Lynchpin for a number of years now and they very much feel a part of the team. Their in-depth analytics expertise and experience, alongside the ability to fit in with our ways of working have proved invaluable to us.Adnan Chaudhry, Vice President of Marketing Analytics, Research & Planning, Emirates
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