Blog 6 - Free Topic - The Hard Part of Customer Insights

“Many enormous new markets are being identified in the United States, and many Guerilla marketers are enjoying record-breaking profits by aiming at these markets.” This statement was made by Jay Conrad Levinson in, Guerrilla Marketing. Levinson is a Guerilla marketing expert and demonstrates his experience through many examples and stories. I found this particular quote interesting because it refers to the wide range of consumer choice in the market today. As I have discussed before, Chris Anderson, the author of The Long Tail, describes the power in the infinite number of niche markets in the world. A marketer has the option to target whom ever he wants, whenever he wants, however he wants.
With the invention of technology, it is now possible for consumers to purchase products with very little effort. They can find any product they want. They have the access and capability to buy the latest trend or search for a rare vintage item. No matter how popular the item is or was, there is a strong chance that a consumer can find it. As marketers, how do we decide who to market our products to? How do we decide the most effective way to reach our target audience and persuade them to visit our store, website, or service? With an infinite number of choices, from a consumers view, it seems that marketers have really discovered what their consumers need. But how do marketers discover a new insight when consumers already have everything they could dream of?
I think one of the biggest challenges in customer insights is a consumer’s inability to articulate what they really need. They can dream big and tell you what they wish they had, but 10 out of 10 times they are telling you about something that already exists. For example, a customer might say, I really wish I had that new Blackberry. When you ask why they start rattling things off like, well it has a calendar on it or the internet is super fast. It takes an experienced marketer to analyze the true reasons behind wanting a calendar or fast internet on your phone. Most of the time it is not this simple to pull away the underlying need from a consumer’s statement. Consumers are not really sure what they need and they do not know how to effectively articulate that. As consumers, we believe we are being offered everything. Like Levinson states, “Satellite and cable TV will grow rapidly, as will the galaxy of choices available.” From a consumer’s perspective, we have what we need. We are not thinking about the products or services that could be offered. Instead, we are thinking about the ones currently available to us.
I love the example of customer insights demonstrated in ‘7 Eleven Gets Sophisticated.’ The article describes how gas station pumps were once without a credit card slot. Consumers have used credit cards for a significant amount of time. It had never dawned on anyone to add a card slot to the pump, saving consumers tons of times. (Not to mention creating higher revenues for the gas stations!) Consumers did not know how to ask for such a thing because it was beyond their realm of thinking. But now consumers could not imagine a life without such a simple service. We are able to tell marketers what we like and what we don’t like, but we cannot seem to tell them what we actually need or why we need it, until after it has been produced.
As the world of choice continues to expand and grow, customer insights are also growing more and more important. Without the ability professionals have to analyze the true needs of their consumers, we would be living in a world with no innovation. It is customer insights that drive consumer choice and freedom. It is customer insights that find a way to make the things we already have better. And it is customer insights we have to thank for delivering the products and services we never even knew we needed.