The world’s leading publisher of science and health information, Elsevier serves more than 30 million scientists, students, and health and information professionals worldwide. As a leader in partnering with research professionals to provide information solutions that help them enhance productivity and achieve better outcomes, Elsevier publishes around 2,000 journals and close to 20,000 books and major reference works. For more than 125 years, Elsevier has fostered the peer-review process, and they continue to drive innovation today through authoritative content mixed with cutting-edge technology, so that their customers can find high quality, relevant, and timely information quickly.
Elsevier’s long-term commitment to establishing close relationships with their customers, users and buyers through a variety of traditional methods has helped Elsevier stay ahead of the curve. In the last decade, however, the ways in which researchers conduct their work and librarians are redefining their roles have changed dramatically — driven, in part, by the proliferation of technology, heightened competition in the marketplace, and an increasing demand for accountability on how money is spent on research resources, especially in light of recent economic conditions.
Consequently, Elsevier was challenged with finding new, cost-effective ways to interact with their global customer base on an ongoing basis, despite cost and travel restrictions. Elsevier also faced a number of challenges from a brand perspective: how to demonstrate greater customer value and promote better understanding of their products and services among users worldwide, and how to connect with their users and buyers in a more meaningful and consistent way… a way that would complement their existing day-to-day interactions.
Facing these internal and marketplace challenges, Elsevier recognised that advances in social media created a powerful opportunity for them to inspire and innovate by bringing the customer’s voice to life. Ultimately, Elsevier recognised social media as a method to obtain and apply new customer insights to address complex business challenges, producing creative, timely and actionable recommendations to drive business results.
In 2008, the Elsevier Academic & Government Markets Group launched the Innovation Explorers Community with Communispace. This was the first of three private, branded market-research online communities (MROCs) that comprised 800 of Elsevier’s target consumers — librarians, researchers, research administrators and executives — for the purposes of greater innovation and increased brand loyalty and advocacy. These communities provided the opportunity for Elsevier to gain a deeper understanding of the needs and challenges of its users and buyers through ongoing conversation and direct, real-time communication with end-users.
Almost immediately, the product development team at Elsevier recognised a deeper, more significant connection between the organisation and the external users. Members of the community regularly participate in moderated activities with Elsevier and are key influencers in product development. Additionally, the community provides opportunities for members to interact and exchange ideas with colleagues from across the globe, inciting vibrant, profound conversations even when not prompted by the facilitation team. These member-to-member discussions, which include more than 86,500 comments and suggestions from this targeted group on topics ranging from multi-disciplinary research to funding to the evolution of the library, not only provide Elsevier with a strong competitive and strategic advantage, but keep members informed of the latest technologies and trends in scientific research while creating shared experiences. Another benefit of the community is the ability to facilitate timely, frequent and in-depth exchanges that have routinely delivered unforeseen insights — even to spontaneous questions like ‘Where is the market headed?’ and ‘What are the main challenges facing the industry?’
In June 2009, Elsevier launched SciVal, a comprehensive suite of web-based performance, planning and funding tools for institutional decision-makers to help them establish, execute and evaluate research strategies. To make sure this new product offering was relevant to their most important users, Elsevier turned to the community members to learn how to best position the services offered in the marketplace and gain a user-based perspective on how to best inform the product’s naming and marketing/advertising.
Positioning:
Elsevier wanted to make sure that the goal of this new suite of products was clear and relevant to the intended user. They turned to the community members, asking them to think of the scientific landscape metaphorically. After providing a week for the community members to brainstorm openly about how to best describe this landscape, Elsevier tested four positioning statements, one of which would become the ‘umbrella theme’, binding all of the products together in a sensible and meaningful way. Possible umbrella themes were proposed to the members, and Elsevier asked for them to identify the one that would best describe the value of the new product. Four options were presented:
- Driving Productivity and Reputation through a High-Performance Research Engine
- Navigating the Scientific Landscape for Optimal Research Performance
- Maximising Your Research DNA for Optimal Research Performance
- Improving Research Performance to Effectively Compete in the Scientific Arena
Members were asked to have open discussions about whether they liked the themes, if they would suggest changes to a particular theme to make it more relevant or accurate, and if they had other ideas regarding how to effectively describe the research community through analogy. Community members were asked to be creative.
The feedback from community members, as well as the member-to-member discussions around these positioning options, provided Elsevier with new insights regarding how to best position the SciVal products. Key discoveries included preferences toward keeping the messaging ‘simple and succinct’, focusing on collaboration rather than competition, avoiding marketing buzzwords and jargon, and providing a clear relationship to the needs of the users and how the product would help provide solutions.
Elsevier was able to incorporate the ideas and feedback generated by members and, in the future, will focus their communication efforts so their customer base can better understand how the different marketing and PR outputs link together.
Naming:
The growing SciVal suite of products now consists of four research tools that allow users to access the vast resources available to researchers via a single portal. In the interest of making sure that the product names accurately fit the products and resonated with the wider research community, Elsevier turned to their private community of users and buyers to let them lead the naming of two products.
In both cases, Elsevier asked the members to review the product descriptions and then evaluate the proposed names by ranking them. Members displayed a clear preference for two of the names, which were ultimately selected.
SciVal Experts: A directory of research expertise that makes it easy for researchers, administrators, managers and senior leadership to find experts and enable collaboration within their institution.
SciVal Strata: A tool that measures individual or team performance across a flexible spectrum of benchmarks and measurements.
Marketing/Advertising:
In addition to product naming and positioning, Elsevier wanted to make sure that the advertising campaign communicated the value of the product most effectively. It did so by leveraging the Innovation Explorer members to help identify the right approach.
Through a survey of the private community members, potential users were asked to select their preferred image for the SciVal suite, and also which image best represented the product description. The feedback from the community reinforced the themes of simplicity and straightforward language.
After reviewing the responses, Elsevier felt confident moving forward with the member recommendations, and launched the ‘Unlock the Promise of Your Research Campaign.’
Elsevier’s mission is to help their customers ‘advance science and health by providing world-class information and innovative tools that help them make critical decisions, enhance productivity and improve outcomes.’ Doing so requires that they stay close to their customers, users and buyers. The members of the Innovation Explorers communities are representative of the global customer base of Elsevier, and these highly engaged, passionate members give Elsevier continuous feedback on product development and marketing while also providing them a means to increase consumer loyalty. Because these communities are expertly moderated and highly facilitated, the members remain engaged and are always ready to put in work for Elsevier.
"The unique perspectives of our users in the Communispace communities provide us with real time, actionable insights, allowing Elsevier to improve and refine our product offerings to be more relevant to the user and, ultimately, leading to better outcomes for the scientific community." – Juliette Goetzee, Director of Media/Community Engagement, Elsevier