Customer insights that matter

Marketers realise significant benefits such as greater sales, reduced marketing costs, higher profits, more lucrative salaries and enhanced influence within their organisation when they understand customers. To reap these benefits, marketers need customer insights: how customers think, how they feel, how they behave and how they are changing in response to evolving marketplaces. Marketing’s role in research is imperative, since marketing represents the voice of the consumer within the organisation. The best research-derived insights are realised when marketers have thought through the following questions before data is collected: 1) is there a clear and specific research question?; 2) which customers are most relevant to the research question?; 3) has this question been answered before (in the academic literature, industry/consulting reports, within my own company)?; if not, 4) which research methods and measures should be used; 5) where should one start in the research process?; and 6) what is optimal? This paper addresses each question.