As a marketer, your most important task is to bring consumer insight into the organisation. Without it, your brand and your business will fail. Once you’ve uncovered it, you’ll feel a sense of liberation and your path to success will be smooth. However, if you’re not a trained market researcher how do you become more insightful? Here’s a few simple suggestions.

Define Your Problem

The most important first step is to be clear what you’re looking for.  If you buy a specific brand of trainers, suddenly everyone else seems to be wearing them. This is because you’re looking out for them. So, formulate the key questions that are really important and you’ll immediately start to find answers.

Never Stop Looking

You must always remain curious. Getting deeper consumer understanding is an ongoing task, not a ‘project’. Therefore stay tuned in and keep your eyes and ears open.  Answers will come to you at strange times and in unusual places – in the shower, on a flight, whilst jogging. Make sure you capture them straight away.

Look Everywhere

The answers are all around you: in newspapers, in shop windows, on the underground, on websites. Don’t just rely on research reports. Ask people you know: your friends, neighbours, colleagues. Ask naive questions and really listen to what they say.  Go to unusual sources. Read weird publications.

Be Empathetic

Try to view the world from your consumers’ perspective. Try to imagine what it’s like to live their lives and if possible spend time with them. Don’t pass judgement what you hear or see, after all It’s their life, not yours.  Is it a coincidence that the best market researchers happen to be women?

Ask Why?

The most insightful people dig deep and don’t accept what they see or hear at face value. They try to explain what’s going on. This can be done directly – simply ask your consumers why in response to their answers, or indirectly – start to form a few hypotheses of your own and draw your own conclusions.

Draw Some Conclusions

Eventually you’ll start to spot patterns. The same answers will start coming from different sources. You’ll soon start to connect different bits of information together to form a fresh thought. So how do you know when you’ve spotted a great insight? There are lots of checklists available to help you judge, but in reality the most insightful people use their instinct and experience. The best way to judge it is to invent some marketing activities that are inspired by the insight. If the ideas come thick and fast, the chances are you’ve hit gold.

Pinpoint the Insight

Capture the insight down using powerful unambiguous language in a couple of sentences.  Ensure it contains  a single powerful thought. Try it out on a few people. Do they get it? Do they get it straight away. If they do then you’re on the right track and onto a winner.