Actionable insights in marketing are one of the most important aspects of market research. But what exactly is an actionable insight? That’s the question I wanted to tackle today.
Identifying actionable insights is one of the most important foundations of understanding how to do market research for marketing. Whether you’re working with a market research partner or conducting market research for marketing on your own, the ability to convert an insight into an actionable insight is one of the most critical parts of the market research process.
“There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
That quote struck me as I started to put this article together, because it really does sum it all up. As a market research partner for advertising agencies and marketing teams, I’ve always kept this mentality, because it’s really the crux of it all. Insights and action together lead to great marketing. It’s that simple.
But while most of market research is about finding great insights, converting them into something actionable is a different challenge. So, let’s dive in and get started!
Marketing insights defined.
If you’ve ever found yourself wondering ‘what is an insight?’ or ‘what is the meaning of insights in marketing?’ then be sure to read this section.
Marketing insights are factoids of information about your audience that ultimately help you conduct better marketing. These customer insights range from buying habits, to preferences, to unique tie-ins that audiences make between your brand and their values and beliefs.
Insights in marketing help us know our audience better, so we can communicate with them in a more meaningful way.
From messaging to strategy, everything within the marketing mix can potentially become more effective when influenced by the inclusion of specific, interesting and unique information about our audiences. These are our marketing insights.
So, how does one gain insight into an audience? By conducting market research.
Market research is the process of learning about audiences and markets, and adapting the findings for a marketing outlook. Market research is literally the process of uncovering insights.
Making insights actionable.
The buzzword in the insights and marketing communities right now is ‘actionable.’ Actionable insights in marketing are insights that you can implement or act on.
Often, insights are presented as ethereal, overarching concepts about a marketing group. Actionable insights instead focus on next-steps that you can take in your marketing right now.
Think about a buying behavior – like an audience’s preference for quick convenient coffee from 1pm to 3pm – and consider that to be an insight.
Reframing that same insight as a marketing opportunity – the audience will respond well to an afternoon coffee promotion due to their known preference for coffee at that time – is how you make that insight actionable.
Put simply, actionable insights are insights that have been framed in a marketing context.
Lights. Camera. Actionable.
Marketers are action-driven people, and as such, market research insights resonate with them best when the market research is communicated as action-ready nuggets of information.
To make this concept work for a marketing team conducting market research, it’s important to keep your marketing hat on all while you’re conducting your market research.
Decipher your market research insights, and mentally map out how the insights will help a marketer. Do your insights impact media planning? Or social media content? Or public relations messaging?
Don’t shy around the insight’s impact. Instead lay them out in broad, strategic marketing recommendations
How to make insights actionable.
So, knowing what an actionable insight is, it’s up to the person conducting the market research to find and flesh out the insights that matter to our marketing.
Not every business has an in-house market research partner, and since I use this blog to help marketers figure out how to do market research better, I thought I’d go over a quick outline any marketer can use to find insights.
1. Decide the direction for your research.
Begin by asking yourself ‘what would I like to know about my audience?’ This is the phase where you’ll define your audience, and then consider the direction of the information you’re going to be looking for to make your marketing better.
2. Gather the right data.
Once you have an idea of what you want to learn through your market research process, you’ll want to gather the right data and information. This can be done through a series of secondary research resources, or even by conducting a focus group or market research survey.
3. Organize your data.
Organizing your market research information is one of the most essential parts of uncovering market research insights, as it helps you make sense of the mayhem. Examine the data you’ve identified, and look for commonalities to help you group it all – either by audience, or even deeper by demographic and psychographic-based segments.
4. Identify the marketing insights.
This might seem oversimplified to give the title topic its own bullet, but this step in the market research process really is the point where you’ll identify your market research insights. Look for commonalities and recurring themes from your organized information, and begin to imagine how those themes could help influence your marketing. Go wild here, and feel free to over-identify marketing insight opportunities – we’ll worry about the excess in a few steps.
5. Build a narrative.
In addition to being action-driven people, when doing market research it’s also important to remember that marketers are storytellers as well. As such, our market research insights need to be conveyed as stories about our target markets, detailing their buying habits, preferences and more. Using clever language and effective storytelling structure, revise your marketing insights into a detailed account of the audience and how they engage with your products or service. Be sure to highlight your market research insights throughout as key points in the story.
6. Cut out anything irrelevant.
One of the most important parts of the market research process is the elimination of unnecessary information. Review your whole narrative through the eyes of a marketer, and eliminate everything that doesn’t directly pertain to marketing strategy. Summarize complex sections, and delete anything that is obvious enough that it doesn’t deserve retelling. What you’ll end up with is a clear, concise tale about your audience and the actionable insights and opportunities that exist for your marketing.
7. Reframe for action.
With all of your information pieced together, it’s time for the most important step - setting up the information for action! Consider how your insights and ideas can play out in the context of marketing, and reframe them as ideas, opportunities and major areas for marketing next-steps. Consider how your insights can play out through copywriting, media strategy, public relations messaging and more, and present the information to your marketing team in a way that clicks with their major marketing strenghts!
How to create or modify a strategy to incorporate insights.
With actionable marketing insights in hand, it’s now time to revisit your marketing strategy. So, how does one incorporate market research insights into a marketing plan?
To start, look at the key audience segments you might have identified in your research, and ensure your marketing and communications accurately reach each of those groups.
Did you uncover key messaging insights about those groups? Then make sure your messaging incorporates those insights.
Did you uncover critical buyer behavior habits, like time-of-day need-states or specific buying triggers? Then take advantage of those actionable insights by considering how to build promotions and marketing activities that create opportunities for your marketing audiences.
And, most importantly, did you find that your current brand does not align with the value and belief insights of your audience? Then consider if now is the right time to conduct a rebrand, built around the key customer insights you’ve identified.
Use actionable insights in your marketing strategy.
When it comes down to it, actionable insights in marketing are the playbook version of market research insights. They’re clear, obvious ideas that are intended to inspire stronger marketing strategies.
To really get the most out of insights in marketing, be sure to craft your market research insights as pieces of the marketing puzzle. Present them to your marketing teams with that in mind.
And if you’re working with a market research partner to uncover and utilize marketing insights, be sure that market research team understands your internal marketing process, so they can deliver actionable insights that matter and resonate with your marketing team.
Insights are the goal of market research, and actionable insights are the most effective format for their presentation. Make your insights actionable using the above process, and start taking advantage of the full power of market research in your marketing process today!
Never miss a market research article again! Sign up for my article updates using the form below!