How well do you know your target customers? I mean really know them? Are they men, women, young, old, Fortune 100 companies, local businesses? If you can at least answer that, then you have the basics, but how much more could you know about them? Can you answer the following twelve questions? I was recently working with a local service company who was looking for help with their online presence. They were keen to get more active on social media and had asked for advice about the best platforms, optimal frequency of publishing and possible content ideas. However they were in for a surprise....

Last December I shared 13 of my favourite marketing quotes; if you missed it you can read it HERE. The post received the most reads and likes of any I have published, ahead even of the list of my preferred Infographs (see HERE). It seems we all love great quotes to inspire our thinking and motivate our actions. For this reason, I thought that as we have been discussing insight development for the last month, I would share my favourite quotes on the topic with you. Quotes are a great way to start or end a marketing presentation and to bring home an important point to your audience. As before,...

Last week I shared the first three essential steps to improved insight development, which covered setting the objectives, forming the team and reviewing the available information and knowledge. If you missed it or would like to re-read it before continuing then please go HERE. This week I will complete the process with the remaining three steps and also provide you with some tips on actioning your insight once developed. After all, if you don’t take action nothing will change for your product, brand or service. #1. Walk in your customers’ shoes I am always disappointed how social...

A few weeks ago I shared some ideas on developing insights. (You can read the post here) It certainly struck a chord with a vast number of you, judging from the comments and acknowledgements many of you sent in. I really appreciated them all so thanks a million. This week I thought I would take insights development even further, by proposing some steps to take for those of you who are still struggling, or would like to upgrade your own process. Often we stop at the information or knowledge stage and thus never get to real insights. This is such a disappointment, after all the hard work of...

Like many successful entrepreneurs, I enjoy helping local associations with their marketing problems whenever I can. It seems that often simply offering a new perspective can be all that is needed to move things forward.  Recently, I ran a re-positioning session for my local outdoor sports association and during it, I realised that many of the things we were doing together would also be of value to other organisations, big or small, who are in a similar situation. For this reason I share some of the brainstorming we did, in the hope that it will inspire you to try something...

Last week I spoke about updating your market research toolbox and how to review your metrics. This week I want to take the next logical step by turning the knowledge you gather into actionable insights. Insights are the pot of gold that many businesses dream of but rarely find. Why is that? Are you one of them? If so then I have some ideas on how you can get better at developing insights. #1. Insight doesn’t come from a single market research study Management often thinks that insight is “just another word for market research”. I remember one of my previous CEOs saying exactly...

Next week is the official start of Spring in Europe, although in the US you have already moved your clocks forward by an hour. Therefore, this seems to be a good time to review what market research we are running and spring-clean our toolbox in line with our new company objectives. If you would like some help in doing this then please read on for some original ideas on how to make it all easier.  In order to decide on the tools you need, it of course depends upon the maturity of your market, the size of your budget, as well as the position of your brands in their life-cycles. Last Spring,...

Many organisations have revamped their Market Research groups as Insight Departments in the past five to ten years. However, it takes more than a name change for those involved to achieve the recognition they deserve. If you work in or with such a department, then read on, as I have some ideas on how you can achieve this. Last month Forrester issued the results of some research they had done looking into the Future of Market Research in 2013. Their conclusions were: 2013 is the year of truth for market insights: their future will depend on how successful they are at getting increased...

If you have ever worked in a typical organisation, you will have almost certainly been under pressure at times to reduce budgets. Each time this happens, market research and information gathering tend to be one of the first areas to be cut. After all there doesn’t appear to be a negative impact on sales, so its Return-on-Investment is questioned. Sound familiar? Then read on. Unlike advertising and communications to your customers, information gathering does not have an obvious link to sales, at least in the short term, so it is the first target many managers choose when looking to...

There have been a lot of posts in the last few weeks suggesting we take a look back over our experience in 2012 or to start planning what we would like to do in 2013. I therefore thought I would combine both perspectives by reviewing how we can work more efficiently with customer understanding and information to develop deeper insight and grow our businesses. All organisations try to understand their customers in order to satisfy their rational needs and emotional desires. The way they go about doing this however, can make a big difference in how successful they are. There are globally four...