Insight

Newton and Archimedes would never have invented their laws without it. We are talking about an insight – an inner inspiration that leads to addressing a problem or a breakthrough in the approach to an issue.

However, the term "insight" is not just about psychology. It is also widely used in marketing. Let's take a look at insight in advertising: what it is, what its features are, and how to find insight to make customers fall in love with your product.

Insight in Marketing: Its Tasks and Features

Consumer insight in marketing is part of a product promotion strategy. It helps to draw customers' attention to a brand and its values, set a product or service apart from the pack of competitors' products, cover customers’ needs, increasing trust in the company. Such insights drive sales and form clear associations with the brand among the target audience.

Insight in advertising solves a number of tasks:

• provide an unexpected but long-awaited solution to a consumer problem;
• help overcome difficulties in using the product;
• help customers look at a product or service from a new perspective;
• turn a customer's dream into reality;
• implement the company's strategic plan.

How to Find Insight in Marketing

Marketers use various techniques to come up with something new in advertising and product promotion. Let us describe the most popular and effective ones:

• Creating a customer profile

How do you understand the way your target audience lives, what they think and dream about, and who they are? You need to create a detailed customer profile to do this. Marketers carefully study the consumers’ needs, analyze the difficulties they face, and communicate with them using various marketing methods.

• Conducting surveys

This is one of the best opportunities to find out what your customers need, what they lack, and what attracts and repels them in your product, service, and sales approach. You can conduct surveys in different ways:

• call the customer and ask what they think about your product;
• offer to evaluate the product in a chatbot;
• ask to rate a product or service by filling out a form on the website, in an app, or in an email.

The last option is the most effective, as not everyone subscribes to chatbots, and it's not always convenient to fill out a survey by phone. However a survey in an email or on a website can be filled out at any time.
To ensure that surveys arrive on time and to those people who have already used the product, you need to segment your customer base and set up triggered emails. They will launch after the purchase of the product or payment for the service.

• Competitor analysis

Competitor analysis is one of the strategic tasks in marketing. It's also important for insights, as analyzing other market players helps you to see things that are not obvious.

You can get inspired by interesting ideas from rivals, find out what their customers don't like, and offer a better solution to this problem. Read reviews, compare your products, and look for ways to distinguish yourself and stand out in your niche.

• Research on popular forums, blogs, and social media

Find out what forums and blogs your target audience is using, and carefully study the topics that are being actively discussed there. Consumers often provide insights to marketers themselves by talking about their difficulties and unresolved needs.

There are many thematic communities on social media where members share their thoughts in the comments. Don't forget to visit competitors' business groups and read what users say about them.

• Popular movie and book reviews

Movies and books contain many insights for advertising and marketing. For example, IKEA came up with the Living Books project, in which it recreated the interior based on the descriptions of rooms from five bestselling books, such as The Great Gatsby, The Snow Queen, and others.

Customers were offered to buy furniture and interior items to stylize their homes in accordance with the aesthetics of their favorite books. This advertising insight significantly boosted sales of products that had previously been difficult to sell because of their original design.

And the Vans brand promptly began advertising its white sneakers after the release of the hit TV series Squid Game. Thus, it was able to increase its sales by 7800%.

What is Insight Based On

There are many opportunities to find an out-of-the-box idea in business that will become an insight for your marketing. Great insights lie in the plane of such feelings and phenomena as:

• Nostalgia – people love to recall their childhoods with awe, so ads based on childhood memories always work well.
• Contradictions – consumers do not always do what society values. For example, they violate the dogmas of proper nutrition and prefer to lie on the couch rather than go in for sports or clean up their apartment. Once you show them that they shouldn't be ashamed of this, you've got an advertising insight.
• Fun – add humor to your advertising, make customers laugh and feel positive emotions from your offer. For example, FedEx showed in an advertisement what would have happened if the car delivery of goods had not been invented and people sent parcels by pigeon post.
• Tension – consumers often focus on their problems, they are overly anxious and looking for reassurance. You can offer them this through insight. This is what Dove did when it started advertising its products by ordinary women, not models, to show customers that beauty can be different.
• Eternal values – people will always cherish their parents, children, cute animals, and other important things in their lives. MasterCard used this in its advertising insight when it said, "Seeing the world through the eyes of a child is priceless. For the rest, there is MasterCard."

As you can see, non-standard solutions often lead to success. Let's take a look at a few successful examples that have increased brand awareness and helped drive sales.

Insight: Successful Product Promotion Examples

PlayStation launched its product under the slogan "Live in your world, play in ours." This approach won over customers, and the brand was remembered for its honesty and impartiality.

The BSE used the slogan "The world puts its stock in US" to show the importance of investing in securities of American companies.

The L’oreal brand's insight is based on a woman's desire to be natural, so the slogan is "I am what I am." Another interesting insight from the Utica Club beer company: "We drink all we can. The rest we sell." This is how the brand emphasizes the value of the product.

Here are a few successful examples:

• Red Bull energy drink: "It gives you wings"
• Shredded Wheat breakfast cereal: "Bet you can't eat three"
• Skittles candy: "Skittles: taste the rainbow"
• Disneyland: "The happiest place on Earth"
• British Caledonian Airlines: "We never forget you have a choice"

Don't be afraid of non-standard solutions, look for them, try them, and improve them. And Yespo will help you understand what direction to think in. Our omnichannel CDP will collect all the data about your customers: you'll know exactly what they care about and what they need. Your best ideas are on the way!