In today’s increasingly globalised world it is important to make informed, efficient and effective business decisions to stay ahead in any industry. However, the stress of competition can lead to quick, snap or short-sighted decisions.
Insight informs those decisions, and at Denvir Marketing our research and insight team offers invaluable insight into a host of different markets for our clients, as well as their target consumers.
We also design research projects to improve campaign delivery, keeping our clients one step ahead. Insight can be gathered in terms of the competitor’s progress and foresight, and customer interest and expectation.
Insight on competitors
Insight is not a means to become and remain equal to others in that market, but to provide more control and power through knowing how a company compares to its competitor and what makes it stand out from the crowd.
Valuable insight can be sought from competitors’ websites such as accolades, company size and location, their vision and mission, the layout and extent to which the website is user friendly, as well as additional features such as; short films, or question and answer sections.
Customer insight
Customer insight bridges the gap between consumer opinion and brand features. Globalisation has empowered the customer to expect more from products before they financially commit. With an increase in customer expectation for a more person-centred approach, sending the right message to the right person is incredibly important.
In order to develop an insight of the customer’s experience and future expectation, information can be sought through a variety of research methods, such as:
- consulting the target market: directly asking customers what they require is a basic source of customer insight, however, as this method limits the sample size, another method would need to be combined with consultation
- focus groups: bringing together a small number of customers or clients to assess a particular concept is an opportunity to gather more detailed responses. However, this method too requires to be combined with another due to small sample sizes
- social media: blogs, discussion forums and social networking such as Facebook, provide opportunity for snowball sampling, allowing access to those further afield
- mystery shopping: this is an established, private sector technique striving to gain an understanding of the customer experience
- website analysis: considering the website from the customer perspective in order to identify where the website is letting the customer down. Website visitor statistics can also provide insight into the channel preference and service use