If there’s one truth at the center of modern marketing, it’s this one: Brands don’t own the narrative anymore. Consumers do.
Once formulated around the boardroom table, brand perception is now in consumers’ hands as they turn to digital spaces to share their opinions, recommendations, and needs. In turn, the narratives that define brands are created through consumers’ conversations with one another, evolving by the second.
At a time when consumers trust their peers most for advice and recommendations, one of the best investments executives can make is in understanding consumers better. This is where insight-driven marketing enters the strategic picture, bringing consumers’ needs to the forefront.
The Need for Insight-Driven Marketing
Consumer insights were once rare, based on static data harvested from time-intensive processes like surveys and polls. As billions of new posts are uploaded across the internet each day, organizations have countless opportunities to get to know their customers better. But almost overnight, brands have become overwhelmed with digital sources for much more dynamic insights. Between 60% and 73% of all data within an enterprise goes unused for analytics, according to Forrester Consulting.
To stay competitive and relevant, enterprises need advanced means of staying in step with consumer conversations across all channels and markets. This is why insight-driven marketing is so essential.
Using Artificial Intelligence, advanced data structuring, and other technology-forward capabilities, insight-driven marketing reveals direction in that chaos. It can give executives a deeper understanding of what truly matters to their audiences, which can then inform their business decisions.
The Critical Role of AI in Insight-Driven Marketing
Today, next-generation AI and large language models streamline the journey from data noise to actionable insights.
Natural language processing and visual analytics give marketers advanced tools for understanding brand narratives and perceptions in real time. AI-powered tools such as pattern detection algorithms and digital “assistants” are also enriching marketers’ contextual intelligence so they can better predict what will happen next.
As AI continues to rapidly advance, there’s never been a better time for organizations to embrace tech-forward solutions. With them, brands are equipped to future-proof their operations with capabilities like trendspotting, viral content forecasting, and predicting campaign returns on investment.
Solutions for Enterprise-Level Challenges
The benefits of insight-driven marketing run parallel to business growth. Brands that do data-driven marketing at scale can increase net sales value by up to 5% and marketing efficiency by up to 20%, according to McKinsey & Company. Still, with added benefits come added responsibilities and increased chances for critical information to fall through the cracks.
Insight-driven marketing solutions give executives a holistic view of their consumer data sets across key elements of the business, including marketing, public relations, strategy, and research and development. However, all that information loses its potential utility without a system and a team for analyzing and delivering them to key stakeholders and decision makers.
With so many potential knowledge dropout points to consider, large businesses require tailored solutions for successful insight-driven marketing. But only those solutions that combine tech-forward tools with premium services are geared to meet enterprise-level needs.
Real-World Results
Numerous industry-leading brands are already winning in their markets by applying insight-driven marketing at scale, with transformative results.
Since 2016, Shiseido has used a suite of enterprise-grade solutions to consolidate and optimize its international multi-brand social media operations. Bringing more than 200 users to one suite with unified data sets and a custom analytics dashboard gave Shiseido a single source of truth about its customers’ needs and perceptions. “We were able to create a globally consistent KPI framework that then made the shift from return on marketing objectives all the way to linking it to return on investment,” says Amit Naik, SVP, global head of analytics at Shiseido.
Haleon uses enterprise-grade social intelligence solutions to manage its portfolio of more than 25 owned brands, available in 170 markets. “Today, our brands are more competitive, as we provide them with insights no one else in the business can,” says Danny Gardner, social intelligence lead at Haleon. “And we do it fast.”
With globally aligned social intelligence, the benefits of insight-driven marketing reach across brands and teams. So even as Haleon’s dental department sales team saw an 80% increase in consumer research efficiency, one of its ointment brands’ social media teams used insights to drive 272% year-over-year engagement growth at the same time.
Looking Ahead
As the most powerful force in brand management today, consumer conversations can inform business decisions at every organizational level. Only insight-driven marketing lets organizations center their customers’ voices at scale. And as the technology at its core advances, brands will gain ever-improving opportunities to understand their consumers.
Learn how the Meltwater Enterprise Intelligence Suite helps organizations put customer voices at the center of their marketing.
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The views reflected in this sponsored article are the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the global Meltwater organization.
