Talisma Helps Hgtv Rapidly Acquire Subscribers
C A S E S T U D Y
Talisma Helps HGTV Rapidly Acquire Subscribers
Customer Success Story
Web site: www.scripps.com;
www.scrippsnetwork.com, www.hgtv.com,
www.diynet.com, www.foodnetwork.com,
www.fineliving.com
Business: Scripps Network is a diverse
media firm that operates 21 daily
newspapers, 10 broadcast TV stations,
and four cable television networks.
“More importantly, Talisma is a value-for-money solution.”
Scripps Networks, the fastest growing
division of EW Scripps Co., operates the
Tammy Esser, Director of the Scripps Networks Viewer Services Department
four cable television networks: HGTV—
Home and Garden Television, DIY—Do It
E.W. Scripps Company, founded as a newspaper company in 1878,
Yourself Network, Fine Living, and Food
turned a pioneer in the area of television and radio broadcasting by
Network. Scripps Networks is available in
launching some of the first radio and TV stations in the world. Today,
25 countries worldwide.
Scripps is amongst the largest television stations, serving more than 10
million American households as local affiliates of NBC and ABC.
Situation: Talisma helps HGTV rapidly
acquire subscribers by being the first
Scripps Networks is the newest and fastest growing division of the
cable TV company in the world to
Scripps Company. Home and Garden Television, the popular TV
proactively solicit and respond to
channel has nearly 80 million subscribers; Food Network has over 70
subscriber input to increase subscriber
million, DIY—Do It Yourself Network has over 11 million subscribers,
satisfaction.
and the recently launched Fine Living is rapidly climbing the popularity
rating charts.
Solution: Talisma CRM
Situation
Results: Scripps Networks successfully
A multimedia pioneer, Scripps continues to address the same question
differentiates as the only cable TV
it asked in 1994 when launching HGTV: How do we make our network
network that proactively listens to
dramatically different from competing networks? They also maintain
subscribers through email, phone, and
their original goal to “give every viewer the opportunity to contact the
letters that are all captured into one
network directly.” So started a unique initiative in the short history of
integrated database in Talisma.
Cable Television Networks—programming and Web site content
• Programming, Web site content, and
creation based on latent desires or explicit opinions of subscribers.
other executive decisions are made richer
Talisma Solution
by using extensive subscriber data
captured by Talisma.
Talisma Service Suite Meets HGTV’s Demanding Requirements
• Talisma campaign management
and Helps to Double Customer Base Within Two Years
features enable Scripps Networks to
A hallmark of Scripps Networks productions is to present an opportunity
publish electronic newsletters to more
for its viewers to communicate with the Network through mail, phone, or
than one million subscribers every week.
email. The network call center is a direct response to the upward spiral
• Talisma’s rich mailer creation facility
of subscriber-penned communication. As the volume of letters from
allows Scripps to garner additional
subscribers spiraled, the Network launched a call center to provide
revenues through ad placements in
another communication channel for viewers. The Viewer Services
campaign mailers.
department soon found that the volume of phone calls got out of control. And more importantly, although they were talking to
thousands of subscribers every month, there was not pattern tracking in subscriber communication.
"How do we know what customers want to see this season? Is it a program on ‘Thai cuisine’ or ‘Pastries of the World’? What
is the most frequently asked question? Is it “How do I preserve the taste and value of my wine?“ Answers to these questions
are clear indicators to the type of content that must appear on the Network’s Web site and the type of programming content
that has high probability of extensive viewership. Talisma helps Scripps Cable Television Networks track all of these
programming-critical issues.
In 1999, with HGTV, DIY and Food Network’s subscriber base growing rapidly, Scripps Networks sought customer contact via
an email address that they published on their cable channels and Web sites. Just as it happened with letters and phone, there
appeared a deluge of email. However, without an accurate record of the subscriber interaction from which to determine an
answer, Scripps faced the question: Do we know what our subscribers really want?
Scripps Networks decided to deploy a CRM application to help capture subscriber interactions across multiple media—letters,
phone, emails, and Web forms. After an exhaustive evaluation of CRM software from a number of vendors, Scripps chose
Talisma. Why Talisma? Tammy Esser, Director of the Scripps Networks Viewer Services Department says, “Talisma has the
Microsoft ‘look and feel.’ Because of familiarity with software programs such as Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Word, my
staff training following implementation of Talisma’s CRM was much less cumbersome than expected. This made it easier for
the Viewer Services Representatives (VSRs) to adjust to a new system. The user-based evolution aspect of Talisma meant
that we didn’t put unnecessary dollars behind another product that came with the bells and whistles that we weren’t ready to
use. Our business is still growing and our needs are constantly changing. And Talisma is a CRM product that evolves with
our business. More importantly, Talisma is a value-for-money solution.“
Results – Talisma at Work in HGTV
Multimedia Interaction Management: Incoming phone calls, email messages, and content of letters are logged in the
Talisma Service Suite. Unlike the pre-Talisma ad hoc handling of subscriber interactions, today, communication across all
media is systematically recorded and categorized for intelligent data mining and message search.
Auto Text and Response Templates: Nearly 25% of all inquiries relate to commonly asked questions about similar issues.
Talisma Auto Text and Response Templates improve VSR productivity, allowing them to simply insert pre-created answers
into otherwise highly personalized emails with a single mouse click. VSRs now have more time to devote to complex queries.
Advanced Search: The Web site department mines subscriber data to create and post high-value content to the Web site.
Mailing lists: The highly flexible mailing list creation utility in Talisma allows the Marketing department to finely define target
audiences for relevant newsletter content. For example, residents of a specific region may receive news informing them of the
celebrity visit to their area, or a Food Network cookery show arriving to a town nearby, and so forth. This pinpoint identification
of targets ensures that the response ratios to campaigns are high.
Talisma Campaign: The intuitive, graphical campaign-design functionality in Talisma allows the marketing department to
create content-rich mailers; schedule diverse actions in different stages of the campaign; assign owners to various stages, and
essentially automate what in reality is a complex multi-wave, multi-step, marketing campaign.
Audit Trail: The comprehensive event-capture feature of Talisma is highly valued by Scripps Network. The audit trail keeps
track of every manual and automatic activity for posterity. The Network particularly values this because it allows them to know
subscriber’s expressed and implied needs and tune programming and Web site content to their liking.
Analytics: The rich and robust reporting functionality in Talisma has enabled Scripps Network to analyze subscriber data to
an extent never before possible and base proactive business decisions on real data and not pure gut-feel.
Summary
Scripps Networks continues to grow its subscriber base for HGTV—Home and Garden Television, DIY—Do It Yourself
Network, Fine Living, and Food Network on the strength of highly targeted marketing communication using the Talisma
Marketing Suite. The Network maintains its competitive advantage over others by providing speedy and high-quality
responses to email, phone calls, and letters sent by viewers. A combination of relevant marketing and prompt customer
service has resulted in high subscriber satisfaction translating to direct growth in the subscriber base.
World Headquarters
India/Asia Pacific
777 Yamato Road
Talisma Corporation Pvt. Ltd.
Suite 400
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Sadashivanagar, Bangalore
Phone: 561.923.2500
560 080 Karnataka India
Toll free: 866.397.2537
Tel: +91 80 2361 3377
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Fax: +91 80 2361 8937
