Report: When should marketers gather consumer insights?

October 17, 2023

Forrester’s Consumer Insights Lifecycle Model. Source: Forrester Research

Customer obsession requires companies to put their customer at the center of leadership, strategy and operations.

For chief marketing officers and other business-to-consumer marketers, this means that companies must bring the consumer’s voice, behaviors and trends into the work that they do. That is the gist of a new report from Forrester Research titled, “When to Gather Consumer Insights.”

“But broadly and blindly inviting insights into the room can overwhelm the process and be counterproductive,” Forrester said in the report.

This new report was produced by Forrester analyst Audrey Chee-Read with contributions from colleagues Mike Proulx, Emily Collins, Bruna Venicio and Peter Harrison.

The report is designed to give B2C marketing executives a model for when and how to use consumer insights to make strategic marketing decisions.

Consumers play two roles in strategic marketing decisions
The COVID-19 pandemic supercharged market research capabilities with more efficient and cost-effective digital technologies, according to Forrester.

In 2021, buyers of market research significantly increased their investment in research-specific software tools. They saw their research volume increase that year, but their ability to meet their organizations’ goals remained unchanged.

For marketers, understanding the latest consumer behavior trends remains paramount — just 1 percent of U.S. business-to-consumer marketing leaders indicated that this is a low priority in Forrester’s Q2 2023 B2C Marketing CMO Pulse Survey.

“But CMOs, beware: While there’s no shortage of supply or demand for consumer insights, contrary to popular belief, consumers do not need to be part of every decision,” the report said.

“Marketers who try to incorporate consumer insights into every decision will end up mired in analysis paralysis with a myopic view of the consumer."

Instead, Forrester recommends that:

Consumers inform the marketer’s macro marketing strategy. It is important to gain a big-picture perspective on the brand’s consumer.

The role that the consumer plays is to help you understand their world without reacting to specificities of your brand and product, per the report. It is the big-picture view of who they are, how they engage with your category, and what behaviors, beliefs and attitudes they hold.

Consumers confirm ideas about your brand and product. Once you have a big- picture perspective and can start to create products and messaging for your consumer based on those insights, it is also essential to confirm your hypotheses and ideas with them, according to Forrester.

“Consumers’ role is to react, and while they shouldn’t make your business decisions, they will help you understand their attitudes and behaviors regarding your brand or product,” the report said.

Activate the lifecycle of consumer insights
Forrester defines the consumer through its Human Picture Model, which demonstrates how to paint the picture of a consumer through five dimensions: consumer, context, market, brand and customer.

The Human Picture Model creates a foundation for how to think about your consumer beyond consumption.

To best activate these dimensions, companies must question when and how to invite consumers into the room to create a holistic picture of them for the organization.

Forrester has identified three different stages in the process of gathering consumer insights that business-to-consumer marketers should invite consumers into:

Predict. This first stage is forward looking. It helps you understand the headwinds from trends that are influencing your consumers’ purchase behavior, per the report.

The insights you gather in this stage focus on two areas: 1) understanding the drivers of consumer behavior through macro- and microeconomic trends and 2) recognizing opportunities through unmet needs within your category.

Validate. The second stage looks at the present. It solicits reactions about your brand and product.

“However, it is not just about consumers telling you whether they like or dislike your product,” Forrester said in the report. “It is also about qualifying why your idea works or does not work.

“Only focusing on binary questions will produce a myopic view of your consumer. It’s crucial to center your insight gathering on qualifying the reasoning behind consumer reactions.”

Triangulate. The third and last stage is storytelling focused.

While consumer insights are crucial, they only provide one facet of the human picture.

To get the full picture, Forrester suggests it is important to connect insights about your consumer that will both broaden and validate your story.

“To broaden your story, advance the perspective of your consumer by adding third-party data such as market insights,” the report said.

“To further validate your story, work with other data partners, such as business insights, to corroborate the insights about your consumer with actions taken that influence your business.”

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Report: When should marketers gather consumer insights?

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