Background

We’ve been working with Hannah and Jude at Wren Insight since April 2023, and since then we have built up a strong partnership, supporting with their recruitment needs.

The project

The project, run for Wren Insight’s client, a major book publisher, aimed to help them better understand the behaviours, motivations, and preferences of different types of readers. Working in partnership with Wren Insight, our team recruited participants for a series of four online customer closeness sessions via Zoom, designed to dig deeper into how people engage with books.

The sessions were structured around clearly defined reader segments, from very light readers (who may only pick up a book once a year) to heavy, highbrow readers who enjoy intellectually challenging content. The publisher was interested in everything from where readers get inspiration for new books, to what draws them away from reading and what might entice them to read more.

Following these sessions, there was also a large in-person customer closeness event at the publisher’s offices. Around 50 internal stakeholders attended, with a selection of participants forming a live panel to discuss their reading habits and answer questions. The success of this event relied heavily on the quality and accuracy of the recruitment throughout the earlier rounds.

The challenge and how we overcame it

While each round only required six participants, the recruitment was highly complex due to the specificity of the client’s reader segments. Participants needed to go far beyond basic eligibility, they had to truly reflect nuanced reading behaviours, motivations, and lifestyles defined by the client.

Although screeners included quantifiable measures (e.g., number of books read annually, fiction vs. nonfiction preference, audiobook use), this wasn’t enough to guarantee a match. In many cases, participants looked ideal on paper but didn’t fit once spoken to either by us or Wren. This required multiple rounds of checking and shortlisting, particularly for segments involving more highbrow or literary readers.

To address this, we introduced an additional step: collecting a list of favourite books from potential participants and sharing it with Wren for pre-selection before any calls took place. Despite this, further filtering sometimes occurred based on the quality of these follow-up conversations. Meaning the process evolved into a longer exchange that encouraged participants to be highly engaged, responsive, and approach the experience with openness and flexibility.

A further layer of complexity was introduced through the requirement for all participants to complete a detailed homework task (selfie-style videos explaining their book choices and reading habits) prior to the sessions. While this significantly increased participant quality and buy-in, it also required rigorous follow-up, reminders, and occasionally replacements.

Despite these challenges, having a long lead time and close collaboration between Acumen and Wren meant recruitment could be carefully paced and highly tailored, with no dropouts or no-shows across the entire project

There was very little room for error in this project, the recruitment had to be right. Each participant went through a two-step screening process: first with our team, then with Wren, ensuring they fit their assigned reader segment, understood the nature of the sessions (including the panel format), and were fully prepared to complete the pre-task homework.

Having run a similar project in 2023, both Acumen and Wren were aware of how crucial participant quality was.

A participant couldn’t simply be “close enough.” They had to be replaced quickly and seamlessly, which made the upfront screening and engagement process all the more critical.

Fortunately, all sessions ran without issue, and Wren provided positive feedback after every round, a clear indication the recruitment had delivered exactly what the client needed.

Benefits/results

All quotas were filled for each round. While some segments were trickier than others to recruit for, we worked closely with Wren throughout to flag challenges early and identify where there was room to flex without compromising on participant quality.

Thanks to this close collaboration and clear communication, all segments were recruited successfully, and sessions ran smoothly.

From the original recruitment we carried out for them in 2023, the book publisher returned to Wren and asked for the same format again in 2024 which suggests they gained useful insights from the previous sessions and saw enough impact to justify repeating the approach.

The ultimate goal for them is to better understand and reach their different reader segments, tailoring how books are marketed and promoted to drive greater engagement and sales.

Repeat business, especially for a high-stakes project like this, is a strong result in itself.

Testimonial

“We are always so impressed with Acumen's recruitment services, and this project was no exception. The spec was complex, requiring more of a qualitative approach to recruitment vs regular recruitment against quantitative measures.

The participants had to 'feel' like their segments, which can be a tricky recruitment ask, as well as be suitable for a client-facing, in person event. The team adopted a number of approaches to achieve this including in depth screening calls with potential participants to get to know them personally, proactively adding extra screening questions to get to bullseye segment representatives and iterative briefing calls with us to understand segment nuance.

As a result, we ran a series of engaging customer closeness sessions - some virtual and one face to face event. For this to be a success, participants needed to not only be 100% on-spec, but to also bring energy and personality to the sessions, which these recruits delivered.

We appreciated Acumen's flexibility and patience as the project (and spec!) evolved.”