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Customer insight

Your marketing mix won't be effective unless you truly understand what your customers want - and to do this you need to step into their shoes.

Insight is about unearthing the truth about how your different consumers and customer segments relate/feel/respond to your product sector, product type and brand.

You need to understand, for example:

  1. What exactly (by segment) your customers’ needs are (consumer needs and business needs),

    And how to find out what exactly they want,

    Recently there has been a strong trend towards using customer relationship management (CRM) systems, to mine customer data, particularly when undertaking research into characterizing customer groups and their product/service usage.

  2. Their (online and offline) buying behaviour (see b2b behaviour or consumer behaviour),

    Also understand what brands, products and services they search for online,

  3. Map their touchpoints with your brand,
  4. The media they rely on, the media they trust and the media they respond to,
  5. What they think about your brand (in comparison to your competitions' brands)
  6. What they think about your pricing (too high?  too low?  just right?)
  7. Where they buy your brand/product/service from and how they'd prefer to buy it in future?
  8. What they think about your marketing, and what approach would be more successful in the future?
  9. How you can deliver them the 'value' they require.
  10. And how you can convert this into customer satisfaction and commitment to your brand.

Guidance on uncovering your insight

  1. How is your audience segmented and targeted? 
  2. How many customers are there in each of your segments?  Is each figure increasing or decreasing?  Why?
  3. What is your positioning for each segment/target audience?
  4. Build a profile for each group.
  5. Which segment is most important to your business? Who are your most profitable customers? Which segment is most profitable to service?
  6. Understand the fit between each customer segment's needs and your capability to deliver them.
  7. What is your ability to serve each customer segment in comparison to your major competitors?
  8. Examine each segment's buying behaviour (B2C or B2B).
  9. What percentage of your key customer segments, (prospects or other relevant stakeholders) are buying or influenced online?
  10. Understand how the members of each segment use and respond to different media.
  11. What are their primary touchpoints with the brand (or the product/service)?
  12. Use a customer satisfaction survey or other research techniques to develop your insight.
  13. Use your database, for example carry out a 'recency, frequency, monetary value' analysis.
  14. Gain insight on your audience using TGI and other marketing information suppliers.
  15. Produce a pen portrait of each target audience.

Customer insight - more options