marketing ch. 4

customer insight

1. data tells you what happened

2. insights tell you why it happened

3. and what to do next

where does marketing information come from?

digital behavior, customer conversations, and real world behavior

digital behavior

what customers do (searches, clicks, purchases, app usage)

customer conversations

what customers say (reviews, reddit, tiktok, instagram)

real-world behavior

what customers actually do (loyalty cards, store visits, hotel stays, location data)

more data…

is not always better

a good marketing information system must balance…

-what managers want to know
-what they actually need to know
-what is feasible to collect
-whether the insight is worth the cost

how do companies learn about customers…

internal data, competitive intelligence, and marketing research

exploratory research

used to gather preliminary information
ex: Liquid death
question: why are people buying our water?
insight: customers love the edgy brand personality and identify

descriptive research

used to better describe the market potential for a product or the demographics and attitudes of consumers
ex: liquid death
question: how many customers feel that way?
findings: X% say the branding is a major reason they purchase

casual research

used to test hypotheses about the cause and effect relationships
ex: Liquid death
question: would changing the can design affect sales?
result: the original heavy metal design significantly outperforms traditional bottled water design

don’t collect data without a plan

1. define the problem (what problem are we trying to solve)

2. identify the information needed (what information do we need)

3. choose the best research method (how will we collect it)

4. consider resources (how much time and money can we spend)

secondary data

information that already exists somewhere, having been collected for another purpose
ex: industry reports, beverage market data, competitor sales

primary data

information collected for the specific purpose at hand
ex: taste tests, focus groups, surveys, store observations

observational research

watch what customers actually do

ethnographic research

researchers observe and interact in the customer’s natural environment

survey research

measure opinions or preferences

experimental research

test whether one change causes another

interviews and focus groups

understand why customers think or behave a certain way

digital sensors and online tracking

track real customer behavior online or in stores

digital text analysis

analyze thousands of online reviews or social media comments using AI

online listening

provides valuable insights into what consumers are saying or feeling about a brand

behavioral targeting

uses online consumer tracking data to target advertisements and marketing offers to specific consumers

social targeting

mines individual online social connections and conversations from social networking sites

sampling plan

a sample is a segment of the population selected to represent the population as a whole

decisions required for sampling design

sampling unit, sample size, sampling procedure

sampling unit

people to be studied

sample size

number of people to be studied

sampling procedure

method of choosin

customer relationship management (CRM)

consists of software and analysis tools that
-integrate customer information from all sources
-analyze data in depth
-apply the results

marketing analytics

uses data and AI to discover patterns that help companies personalize experiences and make better marketing decisions

marketing takeaways

-ask better information before collecting data
-information becomes valuable only when it becomes insight
-customer understanding creates competitive advantage, but trust is essential