Market research case study:
Segmentation and audience development
The Postal Museum
Featured in this case study: Culture, heritage & leisure, Quantitative, Qualitative, Customer segmentation
The challenge
The Postal Museum in 2017 as a new and distinctive player on London’s paid leisure attractions. However, in a competitive marketplace, the museum required a strategic approach to establish its presence and develop its audience, the museum engaged DJS Research to create a bespoke segmentation platform to achieve this.
The approach
DJS Research ensured that the outputs of the project would remain useful to the organisation long after the project concluded, starting with internal workshops to gather existing knowledge, hypotheses and needs. This thorough scoping phase directly informed qualitative and then quantitative research with a range of audiences across London and the South East.
By collaborated closely with the museum team to shape distinctive segments, carefully naming and defining each one in a way that resonated with staff and the organisation’s values. Highly visual pen portrait for each segment were developed – bringing the market to life through the data in a practical and digestible way.
Aa series of embedding workshops were conducted where different teams collectively brainstormed how the segments could be applied and developed. As the segments are bespoke, the museum owns the algorithm and has a simple allocator tool, allowing it to use the segments in-house and with other research providers.
The results
The segmentation has helped the museum manage the transition from a new to an established attraction and prioritise investments in elements of its offer that deliver satisfaction to core audiences, who in turn return and recommend it.
In 2023, The Postal Museum was recognised as a 'National Portfolio Organisation' by the Arts Council, guaranteeing its funding through to at least 2026. Research findings informed and supported the funding application. The museum has also recently opted to enrich the pen portraits with current exit survey data, enhancing the system's ongoing utility for the museum.
Client testimonial: The Postal Museum
Culture, heritage & leisure, Quantitative, Qualitative, Customer segmentation
"DJS Research worked with us to research our current and potential audiences across the museum-visiting market. They used those insights to produce a bespoke segmentation model, breaking our visitors and online users into family and independent adult audiences grouped by their core motivations. We have used the segmentation to ensure our activities, events, exhibitions and resources are audience-focused and that we have a shared understanding, across departments, of the key wants and needs of each segment. DJS Research also organise our onsite and online visitor surveying, sending us the data on a quarterly basis to use for internal and external reporting. In all cases, we’ve been very pleased with the work that the team at DJS Research have done for us. They took the time to understand our requirements, were very responsive to feedback, offered lots of advice based on previous experience, and have always demonstrated great attention to detail."
