“What exactly is a buyer insight?”
I was asked this recently. It made me think. It is a term you hear and easy to quickly assume you know. Turns out, there seems to be confusion given the rise in the use of the term “insight”.
Defined
A good place to start is with a brief answer to the question itself. Here is my guiding answer:
A buyer insight is a profound, not-so-obvious, revelation as well as understanding of buyers, which leads to new innovations, value creation, marketing & sales capabilities, and business growth.
The basis of this definition is a buyer insight must be profound and it must alter an existing direction into one offering growth.
Do Not Confused Fact With Insight
One of the biggest areas of confusion I have noticed is misinterpreting a fact as an insight. One way of putting it is insight goes well beyond fact. To be profound means an insight is an often unforeseen as well as unarticulated observation, which leads to a new deep understanding. This new deep understanding then reshapes business growth strategies.
Uncovering facts of how buyers do things can result in improving effectiveness. However, improving effectiveness is not a clear direct connection to a profound insight. Mislabeling fact... Read more
Home › iMedia Connection Blog › buyer insight
Tagged 'buyer insight' 
What is a Buyer Insight?
Tags: buyer insight, buyer persona, buyer personas, content marketing, content strategy, customer insight, Digital Marketing, marketing, qualitative research, social media strategy, Tony Zambito
Posted in Creative Best Practices, Emerging Platforms, Opinions, Social Media, Targeting, Word of Mouth | No Comments »
How Google is Beating Apple with Buyer Foresight (What B2B Marketing Can Learn)
At the recent Google I/O 2013 Keynote, Google announced a laundry list of new enhancements and services. Solidifying its’ game plan of playing offense rather than defense with innovation. Which, at this writing, is putting the challenge on Apple to respond.
My thoughts shared here are heavily influenced by a brilliant article from Mike Myatt entitled -Leadership Lesson: The Difference Between Google and Apple. Mike is one of our best thinkers on leadership and is the author of Leadership Matters . . . The CEO Survival Manual. Here is Myatt’s view on how Google is gaining the edge on Apple:
“…there is one very big difference between the two – Google plays offense while Apple has recently settled for playing defense. Apple is struggling to maintain its position in the market, while Google is expanding its position.”
Mike goes on to say it is this offensive mindset, which is putting the hurt on Apple. In essence Apple has ceded ground to Google, Samsung, and HTC while taking a defensive stance. The result: Apple’s stock has fallen by over 35%.
What really caught my attention and is well worth noting is the following statement from Mike:
“Google could have made the decision to stay solely focused... Read more
Tags: Apple, branding, buyer experience, buyer foresight, buyer insight, buyer persona, buyer personas, content marketing, content strategy, customer foresight, customer insight, Digital Marketing, google, online marketing, Targeting
Posted in Creative Best Practices, Emerging Platforms, Opinions, Search, Social Media, Targeting, Websites, Word of Mouth | No Comments »
When Did You Last Map the Buying Process of Your Customers?
Are the buying process maps of how your customers buy out of date? If so, this can impact the success of how and where you allocate resources:
How do we generate more leads?
How do we acquire more customers?
How do we message to our customers?
How do we improve our brand?
A tool to focus your limited resources in the highest impact area(s) is to map the customer’s buying process to identify gaps.
Are You Behind the Curve of Buyer Evolution?
Recent surveys, such as the one conducted by CEB’s Sales Executive Council in 2011, show that more than 50-60% of the buying process is being conducted without the help of a sales representative. It’s a fact that buyers have radically changed their buying behavior. This must be tied to execution changes in both marketing and sales. The rise of demand generation, inbound marketing, and content marketing have been marketing responses to connect with a new informed buyer. You can learn more about what research has revealed on rapidly changing buying behaviors and how your peers are allocating resources here.
Have We Considered These Recent Developments?
Is the buying process changing at a more rapid pace than the needed adaptations in marketing?
Who makes... Read more
Tags: buyer insight, buyer journey, buyer persona, buyer persona development, buyer personas, buyer research, campaigns, content marketing, Lead, marketing, marketing plan, sales and marketing alignment, sales enablement, Tony Zambito
Posted in Creative Best Practices, Email, Emerging Platforms, Media Planning & Buying, Opinions, Social Media, Targeting | No Comments »
Channeling Buyer-Based Experiences in SMB
This is part 4 of a series on the challenge of targeting SMB markets and how the use of buyer-based modeling and buyer-based marketing help organizations to grow their SMB customer base.
When it comes to the SMB segment and the multiple sub-markets, it is just a plain fact that you cannot be everywhere. We addressed the segmentation thought process crucial for buyer-based marketing to the SMB segment in the previous article, Grow SMB Revenues With Buyer-Based Marketing, as a means to know where to have a presence. Therein lays the new buyer realities of today. Having a presence that creates a gravitational pull of SMB buyers towards your organization is the new realty of mastering the SMB challenge.
SMB marketing and sales began to become more than just an afterthought in the early ‘90’s through the early 2000's. Considerable investments were made in establishing inside sales organizations and in outbound marketing activities specifically to reach the SMB base of customers and prospective buyers. Newly created inside sales organizations endured the trials and tribulations of field sales entrenched infrastructure as well as the ownership battle of the mid-size customer gray area. Marketing discovered that outbound... Read more
Tags: buyer experience, buyer insight, buyer persona, buyer persona development, buyer personas, buyer strategy, buyergraphics, buyerology, content marketing, online marketing, small business marketing, Strategy, Targeting, twitter
Posted in Creative Best Practices, Email, Emerging Platforms, Opinions, Search, Social Media, Targeting, Word of Mouth | No Comments »
Grow SMB Revenues With Buyer-Based Marketing
This is part 3 of a series on the challenge of targeting SMB markets and how the use of buyer-based modeling and buyer-based marketing help organizations to grow their SMB customer base.
The sheer size of the SMB makes for a daunting task for any organization intent on marketing to the SMB segment. When you consider some Fortune 1000 or Global 2000 organizations can have in the 10’s or 100’s of thousands of companies in their customer bases, the expression of zeroing in on your target buyer can sound near impossible. It is a dilemma however that cannot be ignored. The U.S. Small business Administration estimates that the SMB segment accounts for better than 98% of all businesses in the United States.
In the previous article in this series, How To Get To Know The New SMB Buyer, I touched upon the means to get to know the SMB buyer. Marketing to the SMB segment and buyers should first start with visiting the segmentation issue a little deeper. There have been many means tried for SMB segmentation whether it is by size, type, vertical, products, solutions, and etc. To some degree, they have helped to... Read more
Tags: buyer behavior, buyer experience, buyer insight, buyer journey, buyer persona, buyer persona development, buyer persona marketing, buyer personas, buyer strategy, buyergraphics, buyerology, content, content marketing, Digital Marketing, small business, small business marketing, Strategy, Targeting, Tony Zambito
Posted in Creative Best Practices, Email, Emerging Platforms, Opinions, Search, Social Media, Targeting | No Comments »
