What is Consumer Intelligence?
Consumer intelligence (CI) is the collection and analysis of customer data across multiple data sources including – social media, customer reviews, product reviews, forums, blog posts, news articles and so much more – in order to best understand the most effective best ways to engage with customers.
Consumer intelligence provides a detailed understanding of the experience customers have in interacting with a brand or company, and provides insights into the influences driving consumer behaviors, brand sentiment, and engagement across different channels.
3 Things You Need to Know
- Consumer Intelligence is more than demographics a including gender, age, interests, professions, ethnicity and bio terms.
- Consumers use social networks to let their friends know how they feel about life, and that includes their feelings around products and brands.
- Understanding the interests of your consumers helps brands stay current, enabling them to surprise and delight their customers making them feel known and cared about.
What is “Consumer Intelligence” for?
Consumer intelligence has evolved beyond basic demographic insights and purchase history. Marketers and brand managers leverage deep consumer insights to identify unmet needs in the market.
AI-enabled consumer intelligence delivers a richer understanding of consumers likes, wants, needs, and behaviors. This enables brands to create impactful and emotionally supportive campaigns that capture target audiences’ hearts and encourages action. And this also endears them to brands, building brand loyalty.
Key use cases for consumer intelligence include:
How to gain better results with Consumer Intelligence?
Consumer Intelligence offers everything brands need to know for why people love one brand over another. For best results, focus on:
- Developing an intimate understanding of your consumers, your competition, and your industry
- Learning what, specifically, drives consumer sentiment and behavior
- Locating the trends that matter most to your consumer or your market
- Spotting new opportunities for fresh and innovative products and services that satisfy your consumer’s unmet need
Consumer Intelligence Resources
Red Lobster Netnography
Red Lobster wants to be known for its high-quality, fresh seafood. But that’s not happening, judging from the sound bites in our netnography. Many people do like the food—it’s worth noting that the biscuits got more positive feedback than the seafood—yet many others...
Bing Netnography
Bing advertises itself as a “decision engine” rather than a search engine and claims to help users avoid “search overload syndrome.” Online consumers didn’t comment on that, but they do like Bing’s great home page photos and funny commercials (for the most part). On...
How to Spot Trends
Trend spotting is something I've often heard researchers say they want to do. In fact, if you're a futurist or a practitioner of the Lead User method, then trend spotting is a necessary part of what you do. I've got a few ideas for how to spot trends that leverage...