What’s the real difference between customer findings and insight?
June 23 2015 4:23 PM
“Customer insight” must be one of the most overused terms in the lexicon of marketing jargon.
We made the font pink based on the insight that 58% of our target market is female.
We usd txt tlk basd on da insite tht our teen usrz do.
We made the font bold based on the insight that our elderly customers wear glasses.
While the above snippets have been informed by research and provide useful direction for communicating with the customer, they are based on findings. They are not based on insight.
Okay. So in that case, what is customer insight? How does it differ from findings? And what good is it to your marketing?
Customer insight is a truth about your target audience that is relevant to your offering and can be used to help you engage with your customers.
While findings about your customers are true, and while many of those findings may be relevant to your offering, it is the third point – engagement – that turns your finding into an insight.
Let’s take Pampers as an example of how this works:
1. Pampers’ messaging was originally focused on the nappies’ leak-free performance during activity
2. An ethnography study uncovered an important finding: what parents really crave is a good night’s sleep.
3. This was connected to the offering: nappies were designed with extra dry layers for bedtime
4. This connection was used to engage the customer: Pampers changed their message to be that their nappies provide up to 12 hours of Golden Sleep.
Whether you are in a B2C business like Pampers, or a B2B business, the key to unlocking true customer insight is to keep on digging deeper. Rather than scratching around on the surface we really need to get under the skin of our customers. And once we find a piece of information with promise? We need to make sure that we maximise the potential for our business.
Need a cheat’s shortcut for turning findings into insight? Just keep on asking these questions: “why?” and “so what?”
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