Understanding key audiences through qualitative and quantitative research
The problem
Our consulting firm had a social media company client that wanted to quickly produce a large amount of educational content targeted at a young adult audience. Many teams within the social media company had ideas about key topics and ideal formats but none had been validated and it was difficult to establish a clear direction.
My role
I recommended that we conduct research to better understand the interests, needs and learning styles of the target audience. I walked the client through various possible research methods: benefits, drawbacks, costs, timelines and what we could learn from each. The client needed to understand a diverse, international audience, but also wanted in-depth insights, so we decided to conduct a mixture of qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (multinational survey) research.
The project
On an ambitious three-month timeline we designed and conducted an online survey across 7 countries, as well as 10 in-depth interviews in the U.S. and Canada. We tested different content formats and validated topics of interest. Our findings supported the creation of 300+ pieces of short-form educational content, and identified future long-form content needs.
