The Challenge

The Postal Museum opened its doors in 2017 as a unique new player on London’s paid leisure attractions. But in a competitive marketplace, the organisation needed a strategic approach to establishing a presence and developing an audience, choosing to engage DJS to craft a bespoke segmentation platform.

The Approach

We wanted to ensure that the outputs of the project would live within the organisation long after the work finished, so we started 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.

We 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. We developed a highly visual ‘pen portrait’ for each segment - bringing the market to life in the data in a highly practical and digestible way. We ran a series of embedding workshops where different teams collectively brainstormed how the segments could be applied and developed. Because the segments are bespoke, the museum owns the algorithm and has a simple allocator tool meaning it can use the segments in its own in-house research and with other providers. 

The Results

The segmentation has helped The Postal Museum manage the transition from a new to an established attraction and continue to prioritise investment in elements of the offer that deliver satisfaction to core audiences (who in turn return and recommend).

In 2023, The Postal Museum was recognised as a National Portfolio Organisation by the Arts Council, guaranteeing its funding through to at least 2026. Elements of the research were used to inform and support the application.

The museum has also recently opted to enrich the Pen Portraits with current exit survey data, strengthening the utility of the system going forward.

Testimonial

"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 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 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."

The Postal Museum