insights are important for your marketing success //

Do you feel that your marketing team and you are going round in circles? Your team is doing a great job, but you’re not getting the results that you expect? Almost always, it’s because one piece is missing.

Last year I got stuck in a corn maze. I was confused, lost and disoriented. I was unable to find my own way out. It took me countless wrong turns, and frustration.

Why?

Without a map I could not tell which turns would lead me to my destination and which ones would take me in the wrong direction. I didn’t have a clear perspective and had no insight into the decisions I was making.

Navigating the maze would be much easier if I had an aerial view or a map. Navigating the maze would be easier and faster if I knew which steps I needed to take. It would also be less stressful, and less exhausting.

You need a map to navigate the maze of marketing. This map is insight.

Perspective is gained from insights. They tell you what works, and what does not. They show you the best way to achieve your goals.

You just need to have the right insights if you feel lost, confused or unsure of your marketing strategy.

What is an insight?

The term “Insights”, a funny buzzword in marketing, is often used but no one knows what it means.

Let’s fix it. Here’s what I mean:

The bumpers are the parts of the bowling alley which keep you moving and stop you from falling in the gutter.

Industry benchmarks, anecdotal data or industry expertise do not provide insights. Insights are derived from:

• Your best customers’ preferences, and behavior.
• Your support staff’s daily conversations
• Meetings with your sales team’s prospects.
• Your team will run experiments every month.

You can develop a perspective or process when you hear and see what works, and you have the evidence to back it up. This insight is that doing X will lead to Y.

It could be as simple a format of an image that increases conversion rates. A journey that generates more leads of high quality than usual. In many cases, the insights relate to the emotional factors that influence customer behavior. This includes the “magic” words that cause customers’ eyes to light up.

You can’t steal them from your competitors. They are not available to your competitors. Stop trying. You can’t just sit there and come up with them out of thin air. To create insights, you need to act, interact with your customers, pay attention and listen.

Power of insight

It’s like running through a maze in the dark without knowing where you are. You will waste energy and time, and you’ll repeat the same mistakes over and over again. The majority of companies waste time, money and effort because they don’t have enough or the right insights.

You can easily outperform the competition with the right insights. Even if your competitors are bigger and have more resources to spend.

Take a minute to absorb that. Insights are more crucial if you’re working with a small marketing team or have a limited budget.

Insights are the most important competitive advantage that any marketing organization could have.

Why is it important to have insights? Because insights = results. Your outcomes will improve the more insight you have. No insights = no outcomes. Big insights = big outcomes.

Imagine playing poker with everyone’s cards facing up. You’d think it would be easy to figure out how to increase your odds of winning.

It’s all about having powerful insights. You can make better decisions and achieve better results if you have more knowledge and understanding. It’s not always easy to capture and find insights. It requires effort and intentionality.

It is important to look for patterns and extract them to get actionable insights.

The more you spend on gaining insight, the less you will need to force your marketing to work.

Time is also a factor, because insight fades over time. What worked the year before doesn’t always work today. What works now won’t last forever.

Marketers must constantly strive to gain insights and apply them.

What are the insights you need?

What should every marketing team be asking itself?

What are the insights we need? How will we obtain them?

You’ll be able to easily surpass your goals by making that your mission.

Marketers are faced with a constant barrage of demands and distractions, but they must stay focused to achieve transformational results. Once you have valuable insights, you need to decide where, when and how you’ll use them.

The insights you have gathered should inform every campaign, creative asset and copy. Each of these should lead to further insights.

Gather, compile, and collate all of your insights in an “insights-library” — this is a place where everyone can contribute, comment, and consume.

You can ensure the success of marketing by focusing your marketing team, and your entire organization, on insights.

The article Why your marketing success depends on insights first appeared on MarTech.