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Insights are about answering the why and not the what. By now, you will have a lot of ‘what’ gathered. The ‘why’ is found through human analysis. You will need to pull all of the components of your research together to find the common threads, overlaps, and trends within your data. There are some processes you can use to help you do this.
The first process you can use is a SWOT analysis.
SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Though many SWOT analyses are created by looking at your competition, this one is more centered on your audience.
According to thought leader and Harvard Business writer Nilofer Merchant, the way we create value has changed. It’s not enough to offer a unique angle or just to be differentiated. In the social era, where everyone can be a publisher and choice is endless, ‘onlyness’ is that thing that will make you stand out. Your onlyness refers to that unique point of view and experience that only you can bring to the table. It’s your experience, your knowledge, your history, your vision, your passion, and everything else that makes you uniquely you.
As a digital marketer, you know your product, service, company, history, and so on, inside out. At the end of the day, what you offer your audience can only come from you.
Now, taking all of your data together, see if patterns are emerging in specific areas. Then, look for strong relationships between the data points, such as connections between tribes, connections between competitors and tribes, and connections between the data points themselves. Also look for surprising anomalies in the data, things that you didn’t expect to happen or seem a little out of place.
Even the best research doesn’t always tell the whole story. Sometimes there is a story between the threads, so try to read between the lines. Finally, you should ask the five whys of data.
The five whys refer to the number of questions that you have to ask of your initial insights to get to the nugget of the insight that will drive your strategy. The first statement you make will probably not be in-depth enough to lead to an actionable insight, so you have to ask why several times to uncover the deep insight. Five times is recommended, hence the five whys.
Back to TopTara Hunt is an executive-level digital marketing professional with over 20 years of experience. She is the founder of Truly Inc., the author of one of the first books on how the social web is changing business, and a professional public speaker. Tara has created and executed proven digital and social strategies across multiple industries. She specializes in relationship and inbound marketing, with a passion for data-driven strategy.
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ABOUT THIS DIGITAL MARKETING MODULE
The Social Research module introduces key social media concepts, including the Digital Marketing Institute’s 3i Principles for successful digital marketing, and the role and responsibilities of the social media marketer. It then dives into the topic of social research and explains its importance to digital marketers. It equips marketers with the research tools and techniques needed to engage in effective audience research, competitive and industry research, and cultural research. It also explains how marketers can gain valuable insights from their research data.