Audiense explores the need to differentiate the source of data for effective and actionable customer insights.
The need to differentiate the source of data for effective and actionable customer insights.
Javier Buron CEO Audiense
At the end of last year, Nate Elliot pointed to the beginning of a social market research renaissance and I totally share that view. Nevertheless, to understand where researchers can go deeper into customer insight with digital consumer intelligence, it is important to differentiate the source of the data.
The convergence between digital and traditional in all aspects of marketing has given way to a more strategic and holistic vision of business activity. This, together with a better understanding and use of the available data, is turning businesses to a paradigm in which data and insights are a fundamental pillar of the development of their activity to become insights-driven companies.
One of the most comprehensive descriptions of types of data and the strategic capabilities of “digital consumer intelligence” is the one provided in the image on the next page by our friend David Boyle.
As well as working out the data types, Boyle also highlights the importance of differentiating between consumer vs customer vs audience:
“Why 'audience' and not 'customers'? Some of the people you design for and need to communicate with may be direct customers, but many others likely appreciate your brand from afar and are better thought of as an audience rather than as customers (...yet).”
Independently of the data source, researchers can go deeper with digital consumer intelligence by:
Someone who really understands how the nature of the insights is source dependent, is Edward James Bass. In October, he shared some of his work with Social and Survey data to highlight his discovery and validate what he calls, vital human insights. That is, learnings about audiences which inform decision making and strategic direction. He says:
“No one ever shared a tweet which clearly outlined their customer journey when buying a holiday, since that is about as likely as a survey containing a range of responses to cover the whole myriad of topics an audience might talk about online. With this in mind, I strongly recommend that when looking to understand a particular aspect of an audience that analysts consider which tool is best for the task.”
Social Data, as a data source, is particularly prolific when trying to understanding the mind of the consumer.
At Audiense, we have seen this type of use from hundreds of brands using our platform. Something we have learned is that Twitter data is specifically unique for understanding:
These insights then need to be correlated with other sources to validate, expand to put them into context.
Michael Brito, who has wide-ranging experience in working with social data to understand audience behavior, refers to specific examples where social intelligence and digital consumer insight fit into customer insights such as persona development, content marketing, influencer marketing, and sponsorships. Taken from his article “3 Reasons Why Audience Intelligence Should be a Priority in 2020”, he puts things into context.
“2019 was filled with buzz about data-driven storytelling. While it’s good that marketers and pundits are thinking more about data, it’s clear that there’s more work to do. Social listening, performance media and web analytics are top of mind but the missing piece is audience. When I refer to audience, I mean studying and analyzing real people–their interests, characteristics and media habits that make them unique. This way of thinking about analytics is the real disruption.”
We only seem to reaffirm that in the coming ‘cookie-less world’, creativity and audience-first marketing are at the heart of the solution. Indeed, Nielsen has always sited Creative as the main reason for why advertising campaigns are successful (47%), way above Targeting (9%) – see image below. Moreover, Forrester’s Rusty Warner predicts that Content will challenge the crown position of Data management and Analytics, when it comes to brand priorities.
In this sense, many companies have fallen into what David Boyle calls “the personalization trap” in his article in The Most Contagious Report 2019:
“Many companies fall into the personalization trap of perfecting tactical optimization at the expense of strategic guidance and they miss out on growth opportunities as a result. But with the right tools, strategic guidance in the form of an Audience Strategy can be easy to achieve. We find that clustering consumers according to needs will quickly get you a long way towards a good Audience Strategy.
An Audience Strategy will answer questions such as: Which customer types can you more deeply engage? What are their needs? Which customer types are you failing to engage? Why? … The best part? These Audience Strategy questions can be easy to answer, with the right tools.”
We believe this change is for the better and allows brands to be truly audience-first, and puts creativity and audience marketing back at the heart of the strategy.
