We devoted meticulous attention to our audience in this campaign, and our use of data afforded deep insight into the broad group of people we needed to reach. Through market research, we developed an entirely new “independent-minded” target persona that captured a range of self-employed workers across industries. Further audience research revealed that QuickBooks, which helps people track their finances and earn tax deductions, for example, has a lot to offer entrepreneurs. That insight became the genesis for our creative direction. We developed creative that positioned QuickBooks as a powerful tool that helps entrepreneurs achieve their goals, summed up by our tagline “backing you.” Rather than focusing on a specific profession, our research helped us engage a diverse group of entrepreneurs by focusing on the qualities that unite them, like passion, hustle, and determination. We showed the reality of struggle and achievement that entrepreneurs face in order to make our marketing personal and inspiring. And to drive home our message, we put a spotlight on actual creators by prominently featuring singer-songwriter Willa Amai in our campaign. Our audience-first approach marked a departure from QuickBooks’ previous channel-first strategies, but this new focus was invaluable to reaching our goals.

Data was crucial to the success of this campaign. We began with our “independent minded” target persona, fleshed it out with clickstream data on our audience’s online behavior, and then grouped our audience into clusters with similar behavior. These clusters gave us two important insights: first, we could tailor our messaging to each group, and second, by using those clusters as models for entrepreneurs generally, we could customize creative to those groups and build activations on the platforms that entrepreneurs used most often.

With the knowledge that financial preparation for small businesses peaks January through April, we began our campaign with a major TV event on Christmas Day, coinciding with a peak in NFL viewership. Our market data showed that entrepreneurs frequently used Reddit and listened to podcasts, so we developed digital experiences like a QuickBooks Reddit AMA and integration into NPR podcasts. Capitalizing on Grammys buzz, we also released a music video featuring singer-songwriter Willa Amai and her self-employed team. The video highlighted entrepreneurs across industries, and portrayed QuickBooks as a champion of those who work for themselves. Overall, data insights directly informed our campaign by showing us where to find our audience, and how to engage with them.

Our audience-first approach paid off with incredible results for Quickbooks. Online revenue increased 30% from the previous year and we smashed our subscriber goal with a 40% increase in gross new subscribers, which beat even our most aggressive predictions. Beyond that, unaided awareness of the Quickbooks brand increased by 31% from the start of the campaign, and website traffic grew by 36%. Our campaign was also highly efficient, and we measured success by more than just the numbers. From our Reddit AMA to our hit commercial with Willa Amai, we started conversations about Quickbooks on a range of channels and introduced the company to all kinds of self-employed professionals. Our brand story resonated with them, and it gave Quickbooks a demonstrable boost in visibility among this diverse, dynamic segment.

In fiscal year 2018, QuickBooks invested in brand-oriented marketing for the first time in its history as a company. The goal? Reach a dynamic new audience: small business owners and the self-employed. In order to connect with such a varied group of people, we had to study all the audience data we could find and analyze various data streams for guidance on what independent workers watched, read, and listened to—and what message would resonate with them. Ultimately, we sought them out with innovative experiences and a campaign that spoke to the hustle and determination that makes small businesses thrive.

In addition to developing a new target persona, we mined clickstream data to divide our audience into groups with similar behaviors, coining them “Creators” and “Job Hustlers.” This allowed us to zero in on core prospects that would be most receptive to our messaging, and tailor our creative to specific groups within our segment. But we wanted to reach future prospects, too, so we used those initial groups as models to help us to scale up our marketing and reach more entrepreneurs. We also emphasized greater frequency controls across digital media channels, which helped us reduce wasted impressions, avoid oversaturation, and save money. Put simply, our strategy rested on knowing our audience inside and out, and letting the data show us where we could reach them and what we should say. Our unique approach meant we could increase scale while also going deep to build relevance for QuickBooks among a new generation of independent workers.

QuickBooks was well known among the niche accounting segment, but the company needed to break away and recast itself as a tool for helping small businesses and independent workers take control of their finances. This drove the need to create awareness of the brand and build understanding of how QuickBooks can support the self-employed. Over 700 million people worldwide either own a small business or work for themselves. Quickbooks’ existing subscriber base was just over 5 million, so there was clear potential for growth. Our brief was to design a media strategy that cast a wide net for brand building and drove greater familiarity of the brand among a broad target audience—all while driving bottom of the funnel goals. Backed by the largest media spend in the company’s history, our objective was to meet highly ambitious gross new subscriber targets with this campaign.