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Customer Insight at the heart of Digital Marketing Optimisation

11 June 2013

What is customer insight and how has it changed the digital marketing landscape?

Target customers, customer insight

By Will Young, Co-founder and Director of digital marketing agency, George Bailey.

Let’s start from the beginning, because customer insight means different things to different people.

We define customer insight as ‘a relevant conclusion ascertained as a result of processing and interpreting customer data, in a manner that seeks to understand how to better serve the customer.’ Thus customer insight enables a decision-maker to formulate a set of fact-based customer-centric actions that result in incremental sales.

The times they have a-changed

Data was once a subject that would make many a marketing agency shudder; something for the IT crowd and supply chain to worry about. But today there’s been a shift towards a form of marketing that’s both scientific and creative. No longer just fluff, but fluff that’s measurable that can be turned into something altogether more sharp. That’s because we’re understanding how data, when used properly, can delivers the know-how needed to better connect with your customers in a relevant and engaging way.

Why customer insight is so important

Intuition is becoming backed up or discredited as companies begin to understand more about their customers through data.

Imagine what you could do if you knew:

  • Who your customers really are
  • Their needs and desires
  • How and when they browse your website
  • The way they make their purchase decisions
  • What is likely to influence them or to discourage them
  • What they say about you among their peers
  • Which promotions they find appealing and which ones they perceive as spam
  • What they like and dislike about your brand, your website, your proposition
  • Even, which people look like they’d like your brand but aren’t yet a customer

If you knew all those things and how they change for different groups of customers it would let you market to them in a more optimal manner.

All you need to do is to get to know your customers.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

Top tip for approaching digital customer insight

Ideas for customer insight

 

A Clear Customer Digital Strategy is the foundation All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved – Sun Tzu.

It sounds obvious, but if you don’t know what you want to achieve, you will never get there. Be clear about on your goals when you want to achieve them and your milestones you want to reach on the way. This will be the foundation of your success.

Consider this…

In order to create your customer insight strategy, ensure you have collected the right information that allows you to formulate your position. For established businesses, this includes insight about previous customer behaviour and performance as well as appropriate market data and trends (which can, these days, be gathered in a highly cost-effective manner). Part of the challenge here is to know what data you need to ultimately inform your strategy. Figure out what the questions are you need to answer to create your strategy and work backwards until you understand what information you need, about who, over what time period.

Watch out for…

Many organisations say they have a digital strategy. But really they haven’t committed to working through the creation process rigorously. Sure, most have a ‘strategy’ of sorts, though it’s seldom the case that this strategy is written down and shared among the rest of the organisation. Even fewer have what’s most important. This is a clearly defined plan, which brings the strategy to life. A plan, which is revisited and refined regularly. A plan with clear governance processes around it. Don’t be ‘that company’ and cut corners here.

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Danielle Stagg

Written by Danielle Stagg