We all know the importance of understanding customer needs within marketing. However, putting customers at the centre of your business isn’t just about marketing… Understanding what makes your customers tick is the essence of what drives decisions in your business, and the underlying driver of how your business strategy can be developed.
Many large organizations spend thousands on customer data, analytics and continual reporting, which simply isn’t realistic for a small business on the same scale. But you can pay attention to your customers, and invest in customer data to help make key strategic decisions.
Recently, we recently spoke with Debanjana Paul who has been part of Dunnhumby for the past 4 years. Dunnhumby link brands and retailers to their customers by using data science to get to the nub of customer insight.
They describe their data-driven insight as being used in 4 ways:-
- To achieve deeper customer understanding
- To strengthen business strategies by putting customers first
- To improve commercial performance and hit key targets
- To create differentiated, personalised customer experiences across channels
The main idea behind paying more attention to customer insights is to be able to grow brand value. Insights help deploy perfectly timed and targeted brand marketing campaigns that will boost your ROI (return on investment.)
What does this mean for you?
Post-Covid, we know that customers’ loyalties have changed: Their views and needs have changed, in addition to their expectations from brands.
Knowledge through data helps us gain granular insight on shopper behaviour to identify trends and shape decision making. By creating personalized products, targeted messages and more relevant marketing, we can drive increased sales conversions. And this is as relevant to small businesses as to large ones.
Take our client, Mama Bamboo. We take insight from their current purchasing audience demographic, and create targeted paid advertising campaigns across social media and Google to place their sustainable eco nappy and baby wipe messages in front of a wider audience with similar characteristics.
For successful event caterer turned home delivery expert, Adam Nathan At Home, we used data insight to inform the creative angle for our January campaigns. Knowing that January is traditionally a healthier month for most, with both dry January and Veganuary proving popular among his loyal audience, we suggested new content themes based around achieving dieting goals and trying new Vegan dishes, without having to make any extra effort on the cooking front.
The best part is, by using insight-driven content in our recent paid advertising campaigns, for every £1 spent we have seen return of over £15 back.
So, by properly harnessing customer insights, you can strategically plan to drive an increase in new shoppers or uplift in specific products, which overall will contribute to a sales uplift.
Small businesses can think like larger companies, and benefit from the results.
Do you have enough understanding of your customers? Are you clear about their patterns, motivations and behaviours? Could you adapt your business based on simple customer insight?
If not, now may be the time to put this at the front of your planning, making customer data central to your business growth strategy.
