THDR Case Study

Search Data Shaped DIY Content 

Reading homeowner search behavior as one system turned timing into a content strategy. 

  • 35

    Product priorities identified from search behavior

At a Glance

Client
The Home Depot Rental
Engagement
Content Strategy, SEO, SEM
Focus
Align content timing and priorities with DIY homeowner search behavior

Overview

Knowing what homeowners wanted wasn’t enough — we needed to know when they wanted it.  

The Home Depot Rental needed a sharper read on DIY homeowner behavior so its content could meet people at the right moment, with the right message.  

Knowing what homeowners wanted wasn’t enough — we needed to know when they wanted it.  

We connected content marketing, SEO, and SEM to read search behavior as one system instead of three disconnected data sets. 

The Proof

We identified 35 product priorities based on search behavior and opportunity, and 24 DIY projects based on trends and homeowner search behavior, then turned those into content that could support the brand throughout the year.

  • 24

    DIY projects identified

  • 1

    User-centric content strategy

The Goal

The Home Depot Rental wanted a content strategy grounded in real homeowner search behavior rather than assumptions. 

  • Timing

    Understand when DIY homeowners plan vs. when they start projects

  • Trends

    Spot trending DIY projects and the moments search interest peaks

A person looking on a mobile phone

The Challenge

The challenge was timing. The Home Depot Rental needed to know not just what DIY audiences cared about, but when they cared about it. Without that, content could miss the planning window, the project window, or both. The team also needed a way to turn search trends into something usable across content, PR, influencer, and web efforts. 

The Solution

Our content marketing, SEO, and SEM teams worked together to read homeowner search behavior from the same system. We reviewed impression volume for the brand’s tools and equipment using SEM data to define product priorities.

A person typing on a laptop

Then we layered in Pinterest Trends, Google Trends, and SEO keywords to identify trending DIY projects, spot search spikes, and find the right moments for campaign flighting. That connected view gave The Home Depot Rental a content strategy grounded in proof, not guesswork. 

A person looking on a mobile phone

We created one content strategy that fed integrated marketing efforts across PR, influencer, and website work, plus one annual content production calendar to map cross-channel topics and efforts across the year.

Dairyland Website Case Study

Composable CMS Powers Dairyland Relaunch

Dairyland needed a full website revamp to match a tough non-standard auto insurance market. We designed them a faster site, rooted in strategy and built for growth. 

  • 35%

    YoY conversion growth

At a Glance

Client
Dairyland Insurance
Engagement
UX & Web Design, Web Development, Content Strategy, SEO
Project
Website Redesign
Focus
Improve speed, ease of use, and content education

Overview

In a category where every second matters, the old site needed more than a visual refresh. It needed a new system. 

Dairyland came to us with a clear need: rebuild the website around speed, content, and a better user experience.  

We started with the truth in the market, connected strategy, content, UX, and technical architecture into one plan, and gave Dairyland a stronger foundation for growth. 

The Proof

The redesigned site launched on time and on budget, driving a 35% growth in YoY conversions. That momentum led to additional projects with their parent company, Sentry, in B2B insurance. Clear architecture. Measurable lift. Repeatable value. 

  • On Time

    Launch timing

  • On Budget

    Budget Status

The Goal

Dairyland wanted a complete website revamp that would improve speed, content delivery, user experience, and brand presentation in a competitive insurance category. 

The Challenge

The new website had to perform in the high-pressure, non-standard auto-insurance space, where speed and content delivery matter. Dairyland also needed the work to cover content, technical architecture, UX, and branding at once, without losing momentum or control.

A close up of two people driving in a car. One driver and one passenger

The Solution

We started with strategy, completing competitive, content, SEO, and UX audits, then worked with Dairyland’s marketing and IT teams to design a composable architecture and built the site using Contentful CMS, a static site generator, and the Uniform content editor. We shaped the content model around SEO, tuned the experience around usability, and built a flexible system that could support the new site and future work.

Two screengrabs of Dairyland's website about Insurance Quotes
Two screengrabs of Dairyland's website about Dairyland
Two screengrabs of Dairyland's website about Insurance Claims
Two screengrabs of Dairyland's website about Off-Road Vehicle Insurance

IUP Website Case Study

Content Inspires & Informs Future Students

SEO and program copy built for student search.

  • 81%

    YoY increase in goal completions

  • 41%

    Increase in session duration

  • 53%

    Decrease in bounce rate

At a Glance

Client
IUP
Engagement
UX & Web Design, Content Strategy, Content Creation, SEO
Project
Website Redesign
Focus
Informative, easy-to-use website for prospective students

Overview

Indiana University of Pennsylvania had a content problem. They had too much of it, it was poorly organized, and it came from a professor’s point of view — not what prospective students and their parents were looking for. 

They needed a new website that would give clear, engaging academic program copy, and help those pages show up in search. 

The Goal

IUP wanted a website that made it easy for prospective students to discover learn about their programs. It needed to be on their level and perform better in search engines like Google and Bing.

  • Clarity

    Similar program names, inconsistent page structures, upper-level jargon and a confusing site architecture made it hard to find the right information. 

  • Findability

    IUP wasn't showing up for Organic searches for priority programs potential students were looking for.

The Challenge

The university had to turn 150+ academic programs into compelling web content during a relaunch, while keeping the writing accurate, searchable, and aligned with input from multiple departments and faculty members.

A picture of the IUP Campus

The Solution

We analyzed web traffic and user experience to redesign the site navigation and web page templates to focus on prospective students while leaving room for academic input and improving way-finding for site users.

Working with the IUP team, SEO research shaped program titles, keywords and metadata, and a nine-writer, four-editor content team worked with stakeholders to get everything right before launch. That connected process kept the content useful for people and legible for search, giving IUP a stronger content foundation for discovery and engagement, not just prettier pages. 

The Proof

Across academic program pages, SEO findability improved and it led to new site sessions.

  • 71/109

    Pages saw initial keyword ranking increases

  • 41

    Pages began ranking when they hadn't before

A screengrab of the IUP website with headline of This is Science at IUP
A screengrab of the IUP website with headline of Find Your Degree
A screengrab of the IUP website with headline of Life at IUP
+33%
YoY increase user sessions
+63%
YoY increase in new users

But it wasn’t just more traffic — the users finding the site were more engaged, staying longer and completing more critical site actions. 

Rinnai Case Study

Tankless Truths Built. Myths Busted Across Channels.

Rinnai needed to cut through stubborn myths about tankless water heaters that were impacting adoption among plumbing professionals. Influencer activations put trusted voices behind tankless truths, educating pros and driving awareness.

  • 6M

    Combined impressions

  • +225%

    Over eblast video start goal

  • 20k

    Landing page views

At a Glance

Client
Rinnai America Corporation
Engagement
Influencer, PR, Traditional Media, Paid Social, SEO, Content Strategy
Channels
Trade Publications, YouTube, Instagram, Website 
Audiences
Industry Experts, Plumbing Contractors, Plumbers, Plumbing Engineers
Focus
Education campaign busting tankless water heater myths

Overview

Media relations, influencer thought leadership and trade partnerships, worked as one system to earn confidence.  

Rinnai needed to prove to pros that tankless water heaters were worth consideration despite long held industry myths.

We built an influencer campaign around education, not flash, so the audience could hear trusted voices explain the real story behind tankless water heaters — and not fall for the myths.

The Goal

Increase quality coverage for Rinnai products, and build awareness and consideration among plumbing professionals by giving them a clearer, more accurate picture of what tankless water heaters can do. 

  • Coverage & Credibility

    Strengthen Rinnai's visibility with industry experts through education-based communications, trade activations and earned editorial presence.

  • Pro Audience Consideration 

    Reach plumbers, contractors, and plumbing engineers with the kind of proof that changes how they think about the brand and the product.

The Challenge

Misconceptions about tankless water heaters were stalling consideration among contractors in the US.

Rinnai needed to connect with plumbers, contractors, and plumbing engineers in a crowded category where those myths could slow understanding and buy-in. The work had to reach a niche audience efficiently and hold attention long enough to change how people thought about the brand. 

Rinnai Tankless water heater
Rinnai Tankless water heater

The Solution

We developed the Tankless Truths campaign, where we partnered with four well-known influencers in the pro-contractor and plumber space to create educational, testimonial videos that tackled common myths about tankless water heaters. We then built an educational content-driven public relations program through the website, YouTube and Instagram that did more than chase mentions. It gave the market a reason to pay attention.

Using second-party data from key trade publications to target the selected regions and distribute the testimonial video, we paired our audience architecture with co-branded eBlasts and personalized copy and creative, to increase resonance.

Targeted outreach and content built to explain the category and correct misconceptions created continuity across every channel, connecting media relations, thought leadership, trade association partnerships, and trade events. 

The Proof

Rinnai came away with 70 assets it owns or licenses for use across different media channels. Contractor skepticism in cold-weather markets gave way to engagement that beat every goal. The message didn’t just reach the right people, it moved them from skepticism to action. 

  • 24

    Earned stories

  • +113%

    Over eblast open rate goal

  • +50%

    Over eblast CTR goal

  • 950k

    Combined video views

  • $0.18

    Cost per view

Wesbanco Content Strategy Case Study

Audience-Based Content Strategy Reached New Customers

Audience research, grounded in real life experiences, shaped banking content that mattered to people.

  • 3

    new target audience segmentations

At a Glance

Client
WesBanco
Engagement
Research, Content Strategy
Audiences
Gen Z & Millenials
Focus
Reaching younger adults at the moments that matter most

Overview

We studied Gen Z and millennial banking behavior, identified the life stages and events that mattered most, and used search behavior to set content priorities.

WesBanco wanted a smarter way to speak to people entering new stages of adulthood and making high-stakes money moves. We built the content strategy around real research, not assumptions. 
 
That connected view shaped communications planning, targeting, channel choices, flighting, sequencing, and brand messaging.  

The work gave WesBanco a practical system for showing up when its audience needed financial guidance most with content rooted in the truth of what people were already looking for. 

The Proof

The content and brand marketing framework informed communications planning, targeting recommendations, and channel recommendations. It also identified three target audience segmentations based on research and opportunity, a life event content production calendar for the year, and videos, social posts, blog posts, and landing pages. 

  • 1

    Year lift event content calendar

  • 38

    Content topics developed

The Goal

WesBanco wanted to prioritize its marketing around people in early adulthood who needed guidance for major life events, while building a clearer content and brand strategy for the bank. They needed a platform they could build from that would support their goals and their customers’ goals over time.

The Challenge

The bank’s customer base was getting older and they wanted to expand and stay relevant. Gen Z and Millennial audiences had different life experiences and banking needs than the bank’s existing Gen X and Baby Boomer customers.

WesBanco needed to understand which life moments to prioritize, how they may differ for these new generations, and how to turn that into a content plan informed by search behavior and business priorities. 

  • New Audience

    WesBanco wanted to expand to a younger audience, but they needed to know what mattered to them first. 

  • Endurance

    The content needed to be relevant and evergreen ― not a flash in the pan, but something that would drive continued growth. 

The Solution

  1. Third-party Research

    Conducted third-party research on Gen Z and millennials in banking to understand what their goals and pain points were, and what banking features they looked for.

  2. Life Stages

    Defined and ranked the life stages and events most relevant to these audiences and where and how they overlapped with WesBanco products and business priorities.  

  3. Search Behavior

    Used online search behavior to shape content priorities and inform campaign messaging, channel selection, flighting, sequencing, and planning.  

  4. Audience Segmentations

    Developed a structured set of audience segmentations and a yearlong content calendar the team could build from, which included the initial 38 content topics brought to life across multiple formats.

The Secret to Powerful Content Audits Is SEO + Content Collaboration

The Secret to Powerful Content Audits Is SEO + Content Collaboration

Content Gaps, Missed Clicks, and SEO Wins: What a Content Audit Reveals

Customers expect relevant, helpful content—anytime, anywhere. For brands, this means that knowing exactly what content they have (and don’t have) is more than just good housekeeping—it’s a strategic advantage. That’s where a content audit comes in.

By Brunner Marketing Team

5 Min Read

Team Members Collaborating During Brand Strategy Meeting
Working together creates content optimized for better performance – no silos here – two teams working in harmony for a better product.

What is a content audit?

A content audit is a comprehensive assessment of your existing content, typically across your website. It’s an opportunity to take a step back, evaluate what’s working, identify what’s not, and uncover opportunities to improve. Think of it as a content inventory paired with expert analysis and actionable recommendations.

At its core, a content audit answers key questions:

  • What content do we have?
  • Who is it for?
  • Is it performing?
  • Does it align with our brand voice and business goals?
  • What content don’t we have?
  • What content do we need?

Why SEO and content audits go hand-in-hand

Performing a content audit is a collaborative effort between the SEO and Content teams, each bringing their unique expertise to the table. The SEO team will lead keyword research, while the Content team will analyze competitors’ websites and identify content opportunities that align with the brand’s current audience personas.

Collaborating with an SEO team for a content audit can provide a powerful lens through which to evaluate content for your brand. It helps uncover:

  1. Underperforming Content: By analyzing keyword rankings, traffic, and bounce rates, SEO tools highlight pages that need updating, rewriting, or removal.
  2. Content Gaps: Keyword research and competitive analysis reveal what your audience is searching for—and what your site might be missing. With tools like Ahrefs, we can benchmark your content against your competitors’ and identify opportunities to better serve your target audience.

The SEO and Content teams collaborate to create smarter content that works for your brand.

What a content audit delivers

A well-executed audit provides:

  • A clear inventory of your top-performing pages (e.g., top 250)
  • Recommendations to revise, retain, or retire content
  • Persona alignment analysis
  • Insights into tone, imagery, and brand voice consistency
  • A roadmap for future content creation

It also helps answer strategic questions like:

  • Are we meeting the needs of our total addressable market (TAM)?
  • Do we have the right resources, processes, and tech to scale?
  • Is our site mobile-first and easy to maintain?

A real-world example: Dairyland

When we conducted a content audit for a car insurance client, we discovered that over 60% of their content was geared toward just one of their four key personas. While that content was strong, it left major gaps in terms of the other three audiences—gaps that were limiting engagement and growth.

60%
of their content was geared toward 1/4 key personas

Our audit helped the brand:

  • Rebalance their content strategy to better serve all personas
  • Identify which pages to revise, keep, or remove
  • Understand how their content aligned with business goals and user needs

We also categorized their content—educational, marketing, lifestyle—to ensure a well-rounded mix that supports both brand awareness and conversion.

Dairyland Insurance

The end goal is smarter, stronger content

Ultimately, a content audit is about building a smarter, more strategic content ecosystem—one that’s optimized for SEO, aligned with your brand, and designed to meet the evolving needs of your audience.

Whether you’re planning a website redesign, launching a new campaign, or you want to improve performance, a content audit is the first step toward creating content that truly works.

Ready to identify gaps and opportunities with a content audit?

We’d love to learn more about your goals and the challenges you’re navigating. Let’s connect and explore how smarter content can help you get there. Reach out anytime—we’re here to help!

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Brunner Marketing Team

Brunner team members from across the agency contribute to blog content through their storytelling expertise, from writing and editing to visual design, illustration, and video.

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Brunner Wins 8 PRSA Renaissance Awards, Including 2 Best in Show

Brunner Wins 8 PRSA Renaissance Awards, Including 2 Best in Show

Two Brunner entries received a perfect score, both earning the night's highest honor

Brunner made a clean sweep at the 2025 PRSA Pittsburgh Renaissance Awards, taking home Best in Show—twice—plus five Renaissance Awards and an Award of Merit for our work with Church’s Texas Chicken, WesBanco, and Dairyland. Our Church’s Texas Chicken campaigns stood out among more than 100 entries, earning two perfect scores and securing both Best in Show honors!

By Brunner Marketing Team

5 Min Read

Best in Show Winners:

Friends Sharing Church's Texas Chicken Around A Car
Church’s Texas Chicken – "Get Spicy" Integrated Campaign (Campaign, New Products & Services Communications)
Man And Woman Eating Church's Chicken
Church’s Texas Chicken – "Get Spicy" Block Party Social Videos (Tactics, Multimedia Content / Social Videos)

Renaissance Award Winners:

  • Church’s Texas Chicken – “Get Spicy” Block Party (Campaign, Social Media)
  • Church’s Texas Chicken – “Get Spicy” Integrated Campaign (Campaign, New Products & Services Communications)
  • Church’s Texas Chicken – “Get Spicy” Block Party Social Videos (Multimedia Content / Social Videos)
  • Dairyland – “We Get Riders” (Campaign, Influencer Relations)
  • WesBanco – Empowering Small Businesses to Take Control of Their Financial Futures: WesBanco Business Banking Blogs (Written Content / Blog)

Award of Merit Winner:

  • WesBanco – Strategic Financial Empowerment for Small Businesses (Audience-Centric Content Campaign)

About the Winning Campaigns

Church’s Texas Chicken

Church’s Texas Chicken launched its “Get Spicy” campaign to reignite excitement around spicy new menu items. By tapping into local block parties and social media buzz, the campaign fostered community connection and celebrated the joy of flavor, driving engagement across all channels. The campaign spotlighted real customers and authentic reactions, amplifying engagement through user-generated content and influencer partnerships.

VIEW MORE FROM THIS CAMPAIGN

WesBanco

WesBanco’s commitment to empowering small businesses drove a content strategy focused on financial education. We created 12 targeted blog posts covering cash flow, financial literacy, and growth funding, positioning WesBanco as a trusted financial partner. Supported by paid social and audience-specific messaging on Meta, LinkedIn, and Display, the campaign reinforced WesBanco’s dedication to helping businesses thrive.

WesBanco Business Banking Graphic
WesBanco while staying connected

Dairyland

To expand Dairyland’s reach nationwide, we launched an influencer campaign that connected with motorcycle riders. Partnering with key influencers, we positioned Dairyland as the go-to insurance provider by creating content that highlighted the brand’s affordable, reliable coverage and resonated with the riding community’s values.

VIEW MORE FROM THIS CAMPAIGN

The 2025 PRSA Pittsburgh Renaissance Awards celebrated the region’s top communicators and creative campaigns, highlighting the most innovative marketing, communications, and public relations work from the past year. We’re honored by this recognition and excited to keep pushing boundaries in 2025!

Group Posing With PRSA Awards At Event
Brunner Communications team with 2025 PRSA Awards in Pittsburgh.
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Brunner Marketing Team

Brunner team members from across the agency contribute to blog content through their storytelling expertise, from writing and editing to visual design, illustration, and video.

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Does Your Organization Need Better Alignment to Your Customer? Use Personas

Does Your Organization Need Better Alignment to Your Customer? Use Personas

Cross-team understanding of your audience creates a better experience and a better impact on your business

An understanding of your target audience is more than just a "nice-to-have." Defining who you need to reach, what they value, and how to find them is a necessity in achieving business impact across every department from product development and marketing to sales and customer service.

By Brunner Marketing Team

5 Min Read

Moving from understanding to engaging

How well does your organization know the customers you are trying to reach?

  • Do you understand what they care about?
  • Can you empathize with the problems they are trying to solve?
  • Do you know how they get information, and what (or who) influences their decision to buy something?

As marketers, how do we go from researching quantitative and qualitative insights about our target audience to having a useful way to communicate and align with who that person is when developing strategies?

Enter user personas.

Illustration of does your organization need better alignment
Translate your audience data into something more personable and actionable with a persona.

What is a user persona?

A user persona is a detailed portrait of a fictional person representing a key audience segment.  
Personas allow us to synthesize attributes into concise, actionable insights that are memorable and easily communicated. Shifting the internal conversations about audiences from a demographics list into a relatable person with pain points, needs, specific behaviors and personality. 
When developed correctly, user personas ensure that every team member (and outside partner) has a unified understanding of who you’re trying to reach. A typical persona would include:

  • Demographics — age, gender, education, household income, number of children 
  • Psychographics — personal values, daily routines, hobbies, and habits
  • Media consumption — what they watch, read, and listen to, including traditional media, social media, and all formats in between; what devices they use to go online and for how many hours per week 
  • Challenges and pain points — what factors are driving their buying decisions, and what problems are they trying to solve 
  • Buying behaviors specific to your industry, service, or product 

To bring user personas to life as a relatable person, we typically give them a name, photo, short biography, and quote that crystallizes what drives their buying behavior.
 
For B2C personas, we include information such as brand affinity, product/service preferences, purchase drivers, and top channels where they’re researching.
 
For B2B personas making purchase decisions for a company, we include their job title and responsibilities, subject matter expertise, and role in the company’s decision to buy a product or service. Additionally, we will develop ideal customer profiles (ICPs), and profiles to represent full buying groups. These various tools allow us to customize our strategies appropriately. 

An understanding of your target audience is more than just a 'nice-to-have.' It’s a necessity for achieving business impact across every department.

How do user personas inform marketing strategy and content development?

Rather than using a “one-size-fits-all” approach, marketers can segment their messaging to resonate with the specific motivations of each persona vs simply targeting based on demographics.

To highlight the use of a persona — you wouldn’t try to sell a product to King Charles III and Ozzy Ozbourne in the same way, would you? Of course not. They’re vastly different people, with different needs, buying preferences, barriers, etc. However, they belong to the same demographic — men between the ages of 65-75, who live in the United Kingdom, and have a high net worth. If you were to develop your marketing strategy simply on those demographics vs the type of person you’re marketing to, your program would fall flat.

With a properly developed user persona, you can create specific go-to-market plans tailoring marketing messages, content production, and channel mix that will resonate appropriately.

Personas allow us to synthesize attributes into concise, actionable insights that are memorable and easily communicated.

Creating a persona-driven culture: aligning teams around the customer

While user personas are essential to marketing efforts, they are equally important for a brand’s internal alignment and culture. Other customer-focused departments can use that same persona to align their engagement or retention strategies, and even inform product development. This shared understanding ensures that everyone, from creative teams to sales, is centered around the same data set creating a better experience for the customer and better long-term business impact for you.

To truly leverage the power of personas, organizations must focus on cultivating an internal culture where personas are not static documents but dynamic tools that are revisited and refined based on ongoing customer insights and market changes. By anchoring every decision around a nuanced understanding of the customer, companies can create marketing that resonates and businesses that thrive.

an illustration of an eye with a plus inside of the eye
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Magna justo vulputate venenatis aenean bibendum ante velit cras curabitur.
Glowing Magnifying Glass Focusing On Key Graphic
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Magna justo vulputate venenatis aenean bibendum ante velit cras curabitur.

Can artificial intelligence play a role in creating user personas?

Just as AI is impacting every industry, AI tools and automation are changing the way we develop and update personas. AI-powered solutions and platforms are enabling marketers to analyze large data sets quickly and refine personas, as needed. This efficiency allows marketers to focus more on the use of the personas.

As always, the use of AI should be transparent. At Brunner, we define clear use cases for AI, ensuring that both internal teams and clients understand how and why it’s being used.

Ready to better use your audience insights?

User personas help connect the dots across all your marketing, from content strategy and integrated planning to creative campaigns and channel deployment. And they support organizational alignment by fostering a culture of empathy that focuses on providing value to customers.

If you’re ready to explore user personas and audience-first marketing, we’d love to chat about the challenges you’re facing and the goals you’re trying to reach. Please feel free to contact us for a conversation! 

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Brunner Marketing Team

Brunner team members from across the agency contribute to blog content through their storytelling expertise, from writing and editing to visual design, illustration, and video.

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