When a large legacy newsroom wanted to make the culture shift to “being data-informed, not just data-driven,” they didn’t just bring on an analytics platform; they had Parse.ly’s Senior Success Manager, Kelsey Arendt, taking on the challenge with them. In her trainings, she armed each team member with knowledge well beyond “how to click a button,” as she says. Instead, she focused on communicating, “Here’s what you do with this information,” an approach that one audience strategist in her training session dubbed “data therapy.”

Imagery for analytics platforms abounds with things typically associated with software: a dashboard, metrics, tabs. When you log into Parse.ly, though, there’s more beyond the data on a screen. Behind the numbers are thirteen dedicated, enthusiastic people: our customer success team.

While many companies come to us because they’re interested in understanding their audience better through content analytics, they quickly realize that they also have access to these Parse.ly team members. Ready to meet the people spending their days helping our customers solve the challenges that arise in the world of digital content?

Meet your success team

“People are usually surprised to hear account managers actually making strategic recommendations in training calls,” says Ben Probert, who prior to Parse.ly was a product marketer.

The success team’s first priority is to get your data set up correctly. They make sure your sections, tags, and metadata flows into the dashboard that will help guide your content decisions going forward. Once your data rolls into the dashboard, trainings with our success team start.

Every training focuses on the user’s role and offers strategic recommendations on using data at a media- or content-based organization, but they can also point out which buttons to click, or which reports to run. For instance, Andy Rhinehart, whose experience in print journalism and digital media ranges from The New York Times Company to the Pew Research Center, starts with one recommendation: “Make certain you have a clear picture of your business or editorial goals and objectives before you begin using the dashboard. Knowing what is important to your company is key to successfully using the data.”

It’s no surprise that publishers and brands have questions about their data once they can see and digest it in the dashboard; the landscape is constantly shifting. Indeed, James O’Toole, one of our success engineers, joined the Parse.ly team because of his interest (or, as he says, his “preoccupation”) in the way the internet is reshaping media and communications while working as a technology reporter for CNNMoney.

Luckily the team often gets curious and asks those questions themselves, like “Where is this Google traffic coming from?” or, “How do I know if I have a good engaged time or not?“

Bring on the content challenges

The success team takes on the challenges of each customer as their own. As Graham Maybell puts it, the team focuses simply on “helping people identify their current goals and problems, and then generating plans to help them achieve and solve them.”

Finding ways newsrooms can make a genuine connection with readers drives Kelsey’s passion for her work. As the lead of the Audience Development Solutions team, she uses her expertise to help small teams make a big impact with their data by discovering unexpected audiences, underutilized writers, and competitive edges.

One challenge the team helps with should be familiar to any content creator: tying efforts to revenue. Brian Revak worked with a customer to connect content with conversions using Parse.ly. Their web page with an educational, interactive element was one of the most successful in terms of conversions. Using campaign tracking, they could see how successful their various campaigns were at driving people to the page, increasing the possibility for conversions.

Connecting customers with data so they can connect with readers

With the help of the success team, content creators have discovered what resonates most with their readers. “The most important story our data has shown is that visitors really are willing to spend their valuable time and attention on substantive (and long) content,” says Josh Romero, one of Parse.ly’s Success Engineers. “I think providing accurately measured engaged time has given sites the ability to see the attention value of substantial content, especially for building loyal audiences.”

For the success team, there’s nothing better than the feeling of when you’re getting into the data and, suddenly, everything clicks. “I love when I complete a training, or I get off a phone call with a client and I can tell they are excited about the platform,” says Justin Gurss. “Even though we are sometimes thousands of miles away, it’s like I can almost feel the positive energy emulating from them, and it’s really contagious.”

Brian says the best part of his work day is right after a training: “Once a team that’s new to using Parse.ly sees some workflows, you can see the ‘ah ha’ moment and excitement to dig into the data.”

Interested in working towards those ah-ha moments with our success team? Reach out to them through the Parse.ly website and pose them your challenge. To collaborate on making the most of your audience data, whether you need help uncovering new audience insights or you’re running short on time to do the in-depth analyses your task requires, get in touch with the Audience Development Solutions team.