Background
The new agency of record for a leading regional children’s hospital needed immediate insights into their client’s market and constituents to inform a larger discovery phase of traditional market research tactics.
Approach
Empirical Path and the agency proposed a research approach leveraging the web analytics data already collected about hospital website visitors. We also analyzed consumer interaction with the hospital on various social media platforms. Empirical Path supplemented these sources with audience demographic and geographic information from Quantcast.
Using Google Analytics, Empirical Path analyzed pages viewed and site search terms queried to better understand on-site visitor behavior. We also evaluated traffic-driving search engine terms and external websites to illustrate the context of visitation. And we studied consumer comments on the hospital’s Facebook Fan Page plus re-Tweets and other comments about the brand on Twitter.
For each of these five windows on visitor behavior, Empirical Path performed an automated tagging process to tally any of over 250 keywords used in page names, search queries, and comments. We then aggregated related keywords into over 20 themes that represented all of the potential reasons for interaction with the client online. For each theme, we mapped the relative magnitude of usage on-site versus off-site and of usage in search vocabulary versus website vocabulary.
Google Analytics data also powered a geographic analysis that compared the preponderance of visits to the client website against the online population in relevant states, DMAs, counties, and cities. We calculated a score or index for each geographic unit to measure whether visitation – and perhaps market opportunity – was disproportionately high or low compared to the number of web users. Then Empirical Path showed how themes differed among close-in and distant audiences.
Results
One theme dominated the visitor behavior analysis, creating a potential hook for future marketing messages, and two unexpected secondary themes were discovered as well. The differences in usage among themes – on-site vs. off-site and search vs. website – revealed potential roles for each of the major themes in users’ discovery and exploration of the brand, as well as tactical improvements to the site’s information architecture and navigation. Geographically, while distance was the clear driver of website visitation, certain markets delivered audiences that far out-performed expectations, highlighting potential targets for media buying efforts.
The agency incorporated these findings into its offline research approach and the client requested a follow-on analysis of navigation and conversion among high-potential audience segments.
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