What are the best ways to ensure your consumer insights are reliable?

To ensure reliable consumer insights, I focus on clear research objectives and use representative, randomly sampled populations. Validity checks, pilot tests, and the triangulation of methods help filter out inconsistencies. Emphasizing participant anonymity fosters honest feedback. Longitudinal studies track evolving behaviour, while vigilance against response bias ensures neutrality. Seeking independent verification and regularly updating research methods contribute to ongoing reliability, enabling informed decision-making in a dynamic market.

Creating a friendly atmosphere and dealing honestly will win the customer's trust and create a sense of security, that is, if we want our customer to be honest, we must treat him honestly.

Too often, the purpose of research is to stop marketing doing stupid things rather than help marketing do successful things. In my experience, the larger the company, the more often this is true. The best way to define research objectives with the best outcomes, is to first define & agree your hoped for marketing outcome.

Consumer insights can come from various sources and methods, such as online reviews, customer surveys, social media comments, forum posts, focus groups, or consumer test studies. By using a combination of these sources and methods, you can increase the validity and reliability of your consumer insights, as you can cross-check and triangulate the data from different angles.Consumer insights can be affected by the way you design and conduct your data collection process. If your questions or measures are not objective and unbiased, your consumer insights may be skewed or distorted by your own assumptions, expectations, or preferences.

Each time I go to my consumer insights team, I have 3 things absolutely clear so that they are in the best position to create a study that can bring reliable results. 1. What am I trying to learn? 2. How is that going to drive a business decision? 3. How much risk am I comfortable with? Not every research study needs near certainty. Some may just need enough validation to proceed to the next step. Reliability in insight is a tricky thing because anything that measures people, by definition is not always going to be consistent. Marketers often make things particularly challenging with "kitchen sink" scopes. It is their responsibility to give their insights team clarity and focus to leverage their expertise best.

For fresh, reliable consumer insights, regularly visit online communities where your target audience gathers—also known as "digital watering holes." There, you can not only gain valuable information, but also build relationships with careful contributions. You may be invited to exclusive groups like paywalled Slack groups or private WhatsApp chats. Here, the best insights lie. Build rapport with group leaders and, when suitable, invite them for qualitative research interviews. Recording these sessions is crucial. Using tools like GPT-4, you can process interview data, extracting key consumer insights across multiple discussions. Armed with these reliable (and salient) insights, your team will be better able to serve customer needs.

I disagree. Consumer insight does not always need research. Sometimes, it can be procured by proxy variables, or by mining big data. What helps is having a hypothesis and then understanding what would best give you the learning to address it. Neither qualitative or quantitative is helpful if you don't have a clear sense of purpose as to why you are using it. If you are doing quantitative, consider using biological or behavioral metrics to ensure what you are getting reflects something more substantive than a whim. The metric I dislike most are intent metrics. They only make sense in decisions that are imminent. The metric I think is most underutilized is speed of response. The quicker an association, the more intuitive.

Too often, companies follow a wasteful, creatively diminishing process, with shockingly poor outcomes: 1) Category/Consumer explorative qual. 2) Early-stage-ideas exploration & selection qual. 3) Multiple options assessment & selection quant. 4) Variations of the chosen idea evaluation quant. 5) Final idea pre-testing & predicted success quant. WHY NOT BREAK THE OLD & TRY THE NEW? A) Replace explorative qual with Ai to summarize & generate insights from existing research & the web? B) Replace assessment qual & selection quant with faster, cheaper, more predictive quali-quant testing. C) Rapid iteration/retesting of ideas. Repeat B&C until confident of success. It might just increase chance of success + reduce time/costs by a factor of 10.

Picture this: Your customer base is like a buffet, not everyone loves the same dishes. You wouldn't serve BBQ ribs to a vegan, right? So, slice your audience into segments, like creating sections in your buffet - veggie lovers, meat enthusiasts, dessert fanatics. Then, personalize insights like customizing the dish for each guest. The key takeaway? Serve up what each customer craves, and watch satisfaction skyrocket.

The most beneficial way for us to segment and personalize insights for our customers is through data-driven marketing. We collect and analyze data from various sources to divide our customer base into distinct segments based on demographics, behavior, and preferences. This segmentation allows us to create highly personalized marketing messages, offers, and content that resonate with each segment's specific needs and interests. We use marketing automation tools to deliver these personalized messages at the right time, creating a more individualized customer experience. We continuously optimize our strategies based on feedback, ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction and driving better business results.

If & when an 'Insight' becomes a 'SpringSight', it's ready to inform & drive massive marketing success. E.G. see if you can guess the brand that benefitted from this SpringSight: 'For far too long, the beauty industry promoted & profited from women's doubts about themselves. It's high time a brand celebrated natural beauty & helped daughters, mothers, & grandmothers feel good in their own skin.’ This SpringSight helped transform Dove from a largely US $200m brand into the global multi-billion dollar brand it is today.

Three things I would look into: 1) check for logical consistency; 2) review patterns and expected scores; and 3) validate/ triangulate with other reliable sources.

Trusting your insights blindly is like driving without a map. You need to validate and triangulate your data from different angles. It's like asking for directions from multiple sources to make sure you're on the right track. As the saying goes, "Two heads are better than one." Multiple perspectives ensure you're not led astray by biases or assumptions. It's all about making sure your insights are rock solid!

DATA! DATA! DATA! We can harness data metrics to develop consumer insights by prioritizing the validity and reliability of the data. It's essential to ensure that the data we collect accurately represents the real behaviors and preferences of our target audience. We achieve validity by using well-defined metrics and data collection methods that align with our research goals. Additionally, reliability is crucial, so we consistently collect data over time, ensuring consistency and repeatability. By focusing on both validity and reliability, we can be confident in the accuracy of our insights, leading to more informed decision-making and a deeper understanding of our consumers.

Research does not give you insight. Research gives you information. It takes an empathetic or seasoned mind to turn that into insight.

"Kaizen Insights" (let's call it a "Customer Voice" program) is continuous improvement of customer engagement (direct first-party research, surveys, customer service social media), before first contact and after last interaction, that, if done correctly, is perceived and welcomed by the customer as an ongoing dialog with the brand. And, if shared transparently in the organization, assures a seat for the customers' voice at every table where decisions are made.

1. Determine your trades Research is done with a set of questions and objectives. First, be sure to identify the type of data you need to complete and analyze. 2. Choose a research method The research method should provide the best results 3. Do the research 4. Analyze the results Analyzing the results allows you to identify and visualize concerns, patterns, and common factors that emerge among consumers. 5. apply changes The primary goal of consumer insight involves development and improvement to meet consumer needs 6. Repeat the process Development and research work as a continuous cycle.

Don’t forget to just talk to your customers directly. This is an often forgotten step but a crucial step in ensuring the reliability of your insights. By engaging in conversations and actively listening to their feedback, you can gain valuable firsthand information about their needs and preferences. This direct interaction helps validate your hypotheses and ensures that your insights are grounded in real customer behavior.

What ties many of these points together is the ability of the research professional! The best of us are able to see data and 'get into the heads' of people. It matters more than what categories they have worked in, how expert they are in this or that data tool, etc. If the researcher knows every tool in the book but cannot connect with the people behind the data, then it won't lead to business growth. Consider this when churning out data -- who in your research team is able to hear what's in it?