Listening to Drive Growth 

Launched in September of 2007, Meredith Corporation partnered with Communispace to create the Real Women Talking Community—a group of 300 women, who are committed to fostering family relationships, view their home as a creative outlet, and continuously strive to grow and learn. In the community, members connect with other women with similar passions, and share their thoughts with Meredith Corporation to help create relevant and exciting content for magazines, websites, video, TV, and other media services based on what really matters to women.

As a leading media company with properties directed at women—such as print magazines Fitness, Parents, Family Circle, Better Homes and Gardens, and Ladies' Home Journal, as well as TV, video and online properties—Meredith's primary goal with the community is to better understand how women engage with media to deliver useful and inspiring content—how, where, and when women want it. By deeply listening to women, Meredith Corp. has been able to get into the hearts and minds of women, to help them strengthen user experience and their relationships with advertisers.

An Authentic Connection Means Real Insights 

The Real Women Talking Community is an intimate and trusting environment for women to share their wants, needs, and desires with Meredith. Through their engagement with members, they've created a two-way communication channel with women in order to improve and refine their many properties. The community's impact has been felt throughout the Meredith portfolio and the results are truly impressive. 

As part of their work on creating and refining new channels for parents, the community provided insight to Parents.tv (online video network) and Parents TV (VOD) to shape content focus and programming. Learning from the community that parents really wanted information about child rearing "basics" including feeding, diapering, and disciplining, they increased the frequency of rotating this content in the VOD section to address this need.  Members said they appreciated the video option to better understand these techniques and felt the parenting "how-to" videos gave them the opportunity to watch in the privacy of their own homes.

As one member of the community noted, "Sometimes you need a little extra advice but are embarrassed to ask. If you could watch in the privacy of your own home, that would be better!" 

They also learned from members that there was a need for content to help parents with their teenaged children, not just information about young children. Meredith made a commitment to this area resulting in "teens content" ranking in their Top 5 VOD videos. These key insights, the desire to learn the basics and the need for more content about teens, helped to nearly double traffic in six months time.

The community was also instrumental in Meredith's design of Healia Communities, a new health search site and community forum.  Members provided critical feedback on usability, content ideas, and design which helped Healia refine its site before launch, delivering an average membership growth rate of 250% per month in the first 90 days.

By having an open and honest conversation with women, Meredith was able to learn that women want to see more realistic models in Fitness magazine, another Meredith property. Members' input on content and design influenced the September issue, which with only days on the newsstand, is already receiving positive feedback from readers. 

Letters to the editor of Fitness are noting the change and applauding Fitness for creating a magazine that truly fits into these women's lives:

"I just got my September issue and am THRILLED to see the multiple use of 'real' looking women like myself.  I have been a subscriber for years, and was considering cancelling. As with most magazines, after reading yours I usually feel down about myself for not measuring up to the women on the pages. This month was completely different. I felt like I was part of the normal population instead of the exception. Thank you and PLEASE keep it up!  If a fitness magazine can use 'real' women, maybe ALL magazines will catch on! Imagine the worldwide change that would mean for women of all ages and sizes."
– Kelley S., Parker CO

Another important project for Meredith has been the launch of their Gamma Women initiative. Gamma Women was born out of Meredith's recognition of a new "class" of women who act in many ways like a psychographic segment, sharing a set of attitudes and behaviors that can be marketed to with specific messaging and techniques. To capture the attention and loyalty of Gamma Women, says Meredith, marketers need to know Gammas' attitudes and motivations. Gamma reinforces Meredith's deep understanding of today's woman and embraces her perspective in all that they do. This understanding has been informed by the community and in turn, they've been able to use it to help their advertisers become more adept at speaking to her in relevant ways. As building relationships with advertisers through providing differentiated value is an important goal for any media company, by becoming expert on what women want through listening to the community, Meredith can now offer key insights and support to their advertisers, transforming this relationship.

Britta C. Ware, Vice President of Research Solutions at Meredith, reinforces the value they've found in their listening strategy: "Through the community we've been able to listen to and connect with real women like never before, and because we are genuinely engaged with them through regular activities as well as listening to conversations that they generate, we know that our members are ready to help us at a moment's notice. They've opened up their personal lives, families and homes to us and we could not be more grateful for their honesty and insights."

Here's what a few of the members of Real Women Talking have to say about the community:

"I've learned many new things, have been fortunate enough to be able to contribute my opinion, and it is a site where people are encouraged to speak their minds and give their opinions and everyone is open to what each other has to say. To me this has become an invaluable part of my day. My 'me time' has now become coming down to the computer and spending time with Meredith and company."  – Nancy B.

"Besides all the nice people, wait until you feel the thrill of achievement when you see an idea of yours incorporated into a magazine article. Talk about making a difference!"  – Rae C.

"I already feel a sense of community with some of these women and it is nice. I see that Meredith is attempting to grasp the insights of things that we all face and make their magazine better with it.  I feel that is great."  – Angela C.