In today’s competitive business landscape, understanding your customers is critical for success. But simply knowing what they buy or how they interact with your brand is not enough.
To truly thrive, businesses need to uncover the “why” behind their customers’ choices and behaviors. This is where consumer insights come into play.
Consumer insights offer a surface-level understanding of your customers, gleaned from data, behavior patterns, and feedback. They tell you what your customers do – which products they choose, what factors influence their purchasing decisions, and how they engage with your brand.
This knowledge is invaluable, informing marketing strategies, product development, and customer service initiatives.
However, the true treasure lies one step deeper in the realm of deep consumer insights. Going beyond the “what,” deep insights delve into the underlying motivations and desires that drive customer behavior.
They answer the “why” behind the choices, revealing the emotional drivers, values, and subconscious factors influencing their decisions. This deeper understanding empowers businesses to connect with customers on a profound level, creating meaningful experiences and innovative solutions that truly resonate with their needs and aspirations.
While both terms deal with understanding your customers, they differ in depth and the “why” behind their behavior.
Consumer/Customer Insight:
- Definition: A surface-level understanding of your customers based on data, behaviors, and feedback.
- Sources: Surveys, website analytics, purchase history, customer reviews, and social media mentions.
- Examples:
- Customers prefer organic ingredients in our products.
- They abandon their shopping carts due to high shipping costs.
- They frequently purchase product bundles.
- Benefits:
- Helps identify trends and preferences.
- Informs marketing campaigns and product development decisions.
- Aids in improving customer service and the overall customer journey.
Deep Consumer Insight:
- Definition: Goes beyond the “what” to understand the underlying reasons and motivations behind customer behavior.
- Sources: In-depth interviews, focus groups, ethnography, and analyzing the “why” behind data points.
- Examples:
- Customers choose organic ingredients because they value health and sustainability.
- High shipping costs trigger cart abandonment because they feel the price isn’t transparent.
- Product bundles are attractive because they offer convenience and perceived value.
- Benefits:
- Uncovers hidden needs and desires of customers.
- Leads to impactful innovations and solutions that genuinely resonate with customers.
- Builds stronger emotional connections with your target audience.
In essence, while consumer insights tell you what your customers do, deep consumer insights tell you why they do it.
This deeper understanding allows businesses to make more strategic and impactful decisions across all aspects, from product development to marketing and customer service.
Deep Consumer Insights: Building Brand Purpose Beyond Product Attributes – The Pampers Example
In a world saturated with products promising similar features, brands that go beyond mere functionality and tap into deep consumer insights can establish a powerful brand purpose.
This purpose resonates with customers on an emotional level, fostering loyalty and connection.
Pampers exemplifies this perfectly. While their diapers offer the functional attribute of dryness, their deep consumer insight delved into the hidden desire of parents: peaceful sleep and rest.
Here’s how Pampers utilized deep consumer insights to build their brand purpose:
- Uncovering the “Why”: Pampers realized simply focusing on dryness wasn’t enough. They discovered that sleep deprivation was a major concern impacting their well-being and emotional state.
- Building the Purpose: This insight led them to establish their brand purpose as “giving parents the confidence that their baby sleeps through the night,” going beyond just dry diapers.
- Translating Purpose into Action: This purpose manifested in various ways:
- Product development: Pampers focused on leakproof technology and better materials for increased comfort, ensuring uninterrupted sleep for both parents and babies.
- Marketing campaigns: Pampers shifted their messaging, highlighting not just dryness but also the peace of mind and sleep their diapers provide. They created content and stories resonating with the emotional needs of parents.
- Customer service: Pampers offered parents club and resources on their platform, demonstrating their commitment to parents’ well-being beyond just selling diapers.
The outcome: By connecting with a deeper emotional need, Pampers transcended the product category and built a loyal customer base. Parents found Pampers to be not just a practical solution but a partner in their well-being, fostering trust and emotional connection.
This example highlights the power of deep consumer insights in building a brand purpose that goes beyond product attributes. By understanding the “why” behind customer behavior, brands can create a meaningful connection, build loyalty, and ultimately achieve sustainable success.