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...

Over the last few months we have heard many scandals based upon the disappointing discovery of unfounded consumer loyalty and trust. Rigged football matches, numerous athletes taking illegal drugs and more recently the horse meat scandal. Have you ever been faced with a loss of your customers’ trust in business? If so, or you believe that it could happen in the future, then this post is for you. The 2013 Edelman Trust Barometer report, published last month, concluded that there are clear signs of a leadership crisis in both business and government. In fact in many recent scandals, leaders...

The end of a year and the beginning of a new one is a great time to consider what changes you need to make in your marketing. What habits have you become so comfortable with that you don’t even notice or question them? With today’s fast-paced world, business needs to be constantly adapting and preparing for the future. These thirteen (plus a bonus one!) marketing quotes are amongst my favourites of the moment and will hopefully inspire you to consider what changes you need to make in the coming year to become even more customer centric. #1. “There may be Customers without Brands, but...

Last week I gave a lecture to a group of Executive MBA students at Miami University. It was a fabulous new experience for me, having only done lecturing in European Business Schools until now. There were lots of great questions and many comments about why organisations do what they do when looking to innovate. It’s always easier to identify the sub-optimal processes a company uses when you’re on the outside and even easier to suggest possible changes that are needed, but when you are in the heat of the action, it is not so obvious. I therefore thought it would be useful to list some of...

Do you follow trends? I bet you do! Everyone likes talking about the future, imagining what it might hold and then taking pride in seeing that they were “right”, that what they had “predicted” has come true. If this is how you work with trends, then you must read this post – urgently! There are many trend providers today, from futurologists, to trend agencies, to gurus, all claiming to have “the truth”. An ex-colleague of mine made an interesting comment to me last weekend, as we hiked up to the top of La Dole, one of the small hills in the Lac Leman area of Switzerland where...

    Many of you know that you need to become more customer centric, to put the customer clearly at the heart of your business, but just don’t know where to start. This week I give you ten simple actions to accelerate your organisation along its path to improved customer centricity.    #1 Review the description of your target audience Do all your brands have a clear description of their target audience? Is it as complete as it should be? If not, then use the 4-level who, what, where and why model to complete it for each one. Include not only demographics and consumption /...

Ever wonder how to get people talking about your business? Start by offering them incredible products and services that solve their problems and fulfill their needs. Make your customers happy and give them something to talk about. Read this article to access 7 key elements that will get people talking about you! Every strategy comes with its own set of rules, and so does word of mouth marketing. Yes, this means that you can actually create a strategy to generate positive word of mouth support for your business. But first: why does Word of Mouth matter? Learn about cognitive dissonance:...

Does your business have an innovation process? No? Then perhaps you should count yourself lucky! Most businesses that do have one, sometimes get stuck in it, stopping them from thinking Bigger and Bolder, and therefore also stopping them from dreaming. If this is the case with your own organisation, then this post should offer some inspiration for change. When companies are starting up, they often begin with just one or a few products or services to offer. However, as they grow, they get ideas about other products or services they could add, sometimes at the suggestion of their current...

If you work in marketing and are being challenged by management to demonstrate that you are an investment and not just a cost to the business, then this post is definitely for you. Marketing is coming under a lot of pressure these days; it is being asked, no demanded, to demonstrate the ROI of their investments. With the explosion of information readily available from social media, this has become even more pressing. In response, marketing is showing how many “Likes” they have on Facebook, or how many fans they have on their brand pages, but are these effective and relevant measures of...

This week’s guest post comes from Ray Eitel-Porter, Executive Director and Leader – Europe, of Opera Solutions, C³Centricity’s Big Data Analytics partner. Analytics can help marketers know their customers’ preferences, anticipate their behavior – and take the right steps to influence both. Today’s advanced analytics allow marketers to detect the signals that indicate how customers will behave – whether positively or negatively – and identify the steps they should take to reinforce the former and head off the latter. It’s a truly customer-centric approach that...