Exposing the Magic of Insights

Insight. The elusive wisdom we are constantly in search of. Not just for work and business growth, but in life.

It's a wonderful gift we have. The ability to distill meaning and (hopefully) insight from life's events. That moment when everything comes together, your eyes widen, you stop what you’re doing, and start to nod your head - "That's it!"

In the world of business, and especially marketing, we're often looking for insights as it relates to our "target." How can we get their attention? What problem can we solve for them next? How can we breakthrough?

That's why I broadly define an insight as information that drives business action. If it doesn’t drive action, it's just information.

We use a wonderful image to illustrate insight, originally found in the book Exposing The Magic of Design by Jon Kolko. It's a book about design research that "offers a way of thinking about complicated, multifaceted problems with a repeatable degree of success."

This image simplifies the path toward insight:

What lies in the chasms is where we find insight. But, what are those insights exactly?

Based on my decade of experience in marketing research, I've found that insights can fall into several different categories.

• In-house Insights: Created in-house and focus on past experience and lessons learned.
• Influencer Insights: Work done by a credible third-party or industry thought leader
• Immediate Insights: Original, company-sponsored research and surveys.
• Game Changing Insights: These insights look to the future of the industry and tend to leverage all of the above insights.

Arriving at any of these insights isn't necessarily easy. An In-house Insight may come from a past failure you've been through, or a past success, and it's held onto as though it's a business truth.

Influencer Insights and Immediate Insights costs money and may take a lot of time. Plus, there is always the question of whether these two types of insights, which tend to provide a snapshot of one moment in time, are capable of designing your brand's future.

Game Changing Insights don’t come any easier. In fact, I'm sure they're harder to find. But, if done right, they bring the positive change most businesses are looking for - vision and a destination, people alignment, and more.

Here are the core steps to uncover the insights your business needs:

Collect Data: Search, Observe and Listen

Take time to do the important work of collecting all the data you possibly can. This includes primary research, digital data, spending time with customers (definitely spending time with customers), team discussion, competitive analysis, and more.

Make Meaning: Getting to Insight

Get data and information out of your head and your team's head and into the real world. Visualize it in every way possible. Make participant boards, use post-it notes. Invite discussion and challenge. If you don’t involve team members, you end up with one-dimensional results. Collaborate. Start to unite similar ideas, stories, and experiences.

Define: Map Insights and Implications

First, distill the whole down to five to seven key themes/findings. These themes must be relevant to the project and support an actionable change for the business. Constantly ask, "Why does this matter?" Second, use these themes to reframe the problem in an interesting and thought-provoking way, and deliver your point-of-view. Third, leverage data and consumer stories to support your findings and implications.

There you have it, the magic of insight. A process to drive your business forward. It takes hard work. But, once it's complete you and your team move forward with confidence and vigor. Sure of the path. Connected to your customer. Seeking a new horizon.

What else has worked for you and your team?