The Goal: Learn the importance of insights and understand how you can get the most benefit of them
The Tool: Customer Insights
In simple terms, insight is defined as follows: “Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect in a specific context.”
Having an insight is to experience an “a-ha” moment, the moment when that light-bulb comes on in your head saying you figured out that “something.”
In fact, you have an understanding of specific “cause and effect” sequences in your daily life. Think about it. You know how to operate an ATM machine, you know how to make ice using your refrigerator, you know how to book a plane ticket on the Web.
Does it mean that you have insights on all these things?
Yes and no. Yes, they are insights when you first figured them out. No, because they remain insights for only a few moments. They are no longer insights as soon as you realize that knowing how to do these things are not considered “extra” valuable in society. You are expected to know these things.
So, what is an insight?
Having an insight is to see what everyone is seeing but notice what few else do.
Really, the premium is paid for those insights that move the needle in a big way.
A customer insight, or consumer insight, is an interpretation of trends in human behaviors which aims to increase the effectiveness of a product or service for the consumer, as well as increase sales for mutual benefit.
Customer insight is the understanding of your customer, based on their buying behavior, their experiences with you, their beliefs or their needs. Customer insights go beyond raw data or research, it is a multi-view of your customers derived from a strategic analysis of qualitative and quantitative data.
How can customer insight help your business?
PREDICT YOUR CUSTOMER’S MOVEMENTS
By researching your customer you can identify patterns in their buying, learn about their business operation, including product lines and find out exactly what’s important to them.
So why is this important? Firstly you can project where their company will move next and be one step ahead of your competitors by getting your marketing team to create bespoke messaging directly to their wants or needs. You’ll also be able to build stronger relationships with your customers as your conversations will always be relevant to them.
Customer Insights Professionals capture, manage, analyze, and apply customer knowledge to help your business win, serve, and retain customers.
To succeed, you must capture customer data from all sources and manage it across customer-facing systems and functions as well as analyze it to obtain actionable insights and apply it to the business.
Today’s businesses must gather consumer insights in order to strategize and implement effective consumer marketing strategies. This applies not only to how to present products and services to the buying public, but even to the development of the products and services themselves.
Traditionally, a company might develop a product and then spend millions of dollars on mass marketing to push it out to consumers. In a way consumers were almost being treated as children – here’s what you need to make your house look great, to smell better, to attract someone. This arrangement worked rather well for some time, too. But try achieving the same results today when corporations are called to task in the social media universe for any perceived slight or condescending attitude.
Consumer insights provide understanding that leads to marketing on a more direct and personal level. Not only does a beverage company need to know which parts of the country call it soda and which say “pop,” they may even find it helpful to understand whether cultural differences play a role in beverage selection. Do people from a certain ethnic background prefer one type of drink over another?
Consumer insights can help try to find a problem that the company can solve. How long did it take auto manufacturers to finally realize that some people had problems opening the tailgates on their SUVs, and that the ability to simply wave your foot under a sensor to open it might actually help sell vehicles?
Anthropologists and ethnographers can also uncover group dynamics that can aid in launching products, building sales or establishing a brand identify. This understanding will definitely be necessary as corporations delve into the veritable gold mine of marketing that is social media. The ability to identify group influencers and advocates, and predict how information will be shared among the group members, can lead to a more effective consumer relationship in an online world.
This learning can be applied to business and marketing decisions that provide a competitive edge. Once you know why your customers do things a certain way, it will be much easier to establish and build long-term relationships with them.
Know your customers, learn about their pains, needs and preferences. Take the right actions and make a difference.
