Article by ICG member Jeff Deighton, Insight Engineers
In the last 4 to 5 years, we have seen an increase in customer immersion projects to better understand category and brand entry points as clients face pressure on sales volume and retail buyers want more profitable shelf or web site space.
This increase comes from two main reasons: –
- A realisation that customer and prospect behaviour continue to evolve in a client’s category. There is a real desire to better inform the sales strategy and future brand communication.
- Senior stakeholders want to improve customer lifetime value by reducing the level of ‘lost sales’ and increasing the frequency of purchasing.
For over 20 years, insight engineers, has been working with UK and International clients to better understand their respective customer & prospect journeys, finding opportunities to prevent ‘lost sales’ by strengthening the client’s value proposition.
Even though there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, below are six common key areas we would be happy to help you explore for your organisation.
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1. Better understand category entry points and purchase triggers
Understanding why people buy your category, the entry points, needs, drivers, and underlying motivations is key to launching a new product.
Post launch, identifying what triggers people to buy, drink, eat, or use your category and what they look for, is important to keep a brand relevant.
How people use your product in their daily life, whether it’s a routine or a special occasion etc, helps to identify the best times and situations to engage. Such occasions can be key in finding more sales volume.
Our usual approach starts with an online diary for two full weeks, including photos and videos of usage at home/work and outside. In the consumer world, this helps us understand where, when, and why people use products — from being alone versus with friends, during weekdays versus weekends, at home versus on the go.
Such information is useful for ideas around premium cues to switch from competitors and where and when people will pay more or choose a bigger or smaller pack.
In recent projects, we’ve seen how store location and merchandising in front of the store compared to the back of store impacts on willingness to pay. This becomes clear to clients who join us on home visits or retail visits to the local stores people buy from.
2. Most customers and prospects are pre-disposed to receive a follow-up
We hear a common myth that following up with someone who hasn’t responded creates a negative situation. We’ve found the opposite — most existing customers and prospects have opted in to receive marketing from a brand, or service, and are open for follow-ups.
Treating everyone as an individual with a suitable frequency of dialogue and relevant content, refreshes the relationship and help to create brand warmth and opportunities that help move people through your purchase process.
Building a relationship takes effort. Not everyone can be contacted during the workday and especially for big purchases, it’s best to use a variety of follow-up methods (phone calls, email, text, e-mail) to reach people to establish their position with you.
3. Measuring the potential sales opportunity by identifying who is still interested
As the world moves towards AI and automated marketing, people who don’t respond to such digital contact can be considered as ‘lost’. However, some of the research we have conducted has shown that up to 2/3rd of these ‘lost’ people are still willing to consider buying from our client.
For example, in the automotive industry, we’ve found that at least half of those who go beyond a simple brochure request to a more concrete step of visiting a dealer and to book a test drive, are still interested two to three months later. Some salespeople do send an impersonal text or curt e-mail, but also some salespeople don’t follow up at all, feeling these warm candidates will have gone cold if nothing happens within six weeks.
Reaching out to people who’ve taken a positive step in researching your product helps determine the size of your potential uplift, identifies the profile of people who are likely to buy, understand the competitors and figure out what offers or promotions will work best when the time is right.
4. Understand why sales are ‘lost’?
By understanding the good and bad moments in the customer journey and the profile of people who don’t buy, sales strategies and tactics can be improved to remove barriers and ensure needs are fully met, helping to improve the ‘conversion ratio’ and protect market share.
A typical approach across countries is to invite 25-30 candidates per country to a 3-day community panel to spend the first day working on challenges, issues and needs; the second day on solutions and ideas; and the third day on response to key brand visuals and messaging concepts.
This approach works exceptionally well across cultures. Studies across DE, FR and UK can be especially revealing around underlying motivations and cultural influences.
This information is then used to strengthen the future marketing material, which often we evaluate monadically on a quantitative basis to provide the board with a confident go-no-go decision for a solution to maximise sales.
Such focussed research helps the organization take ownership of the leaky sales pipe & low engagement, follow through on solutions, and importantly demonstrate to key shareholders that it is solving this issue.
5. Sales processes can often be improved or fixed
Sometimes, the customer journey does not go smoothly through the organization’s touchpoints as planned. There is no substitute for contacting your customers to hear, or see, first-hand that the intended sales process and customer journey is not being followed as prescribed and promised.
Examples of early warnings signs of a leaky sales process include an online quotation tool that doesn’t work properly for a specific selection, a requested holiday brochure that does not arrive, the car model that isn’t available for a test drive, or an offer that isn’t relevant, clear, or available.
Lack of availability in a pressurised moment, such as when desperately trying to find a place in a care home for an elderly relative, can lead to a strong emotional dissonance. Such issues are found through contacting customers, who then often suggest improvements when we interview them.
Implementing solutions for customers builds a positive experience for them, and if managed well, creates a strong brand advocate.
6. An opted-in and well-managed client database is a real asset
A well-managed and compliant client database can be used to target existing customers, warm prospects, and candidates to take part in research.
We like to choose consumers people based on their attitudes as well as behaviour & demographics. Attitudes such as being more creative or willing to challenge a view they do not agree with.
In the B2B world, it is more common to have a 121 conversation and compliant databases are super valuable in providing warm contact to high-volume ambassadors such as distributors and larger clients.
If there is no client database or a ‘control’ sample is needed, customers and prospects can also be reached using online marketplaces.
Useful business insights & classifications can be added back into the database to help improve targeting strategies, for example attitude to risk in financial services.
And finally, we have found it is often important to understand how your people, your staff really feel about your organisation, products and services too.
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If you think insight engineers could help you, please email me, Jeff Deighton at: insights@insight-engineers.com or call +44 (0) 1832 618 005
Delivering insights since 2003, we answer marketing and business questions through superior understanding.
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