The CEO, CMO, and COO all told me the same story. They believed that their signature product was no longer relevant to their market. Worried about customers leaving, they asked for some help to fix that problem.
But the data said something else.
After a painstaking analysis of several sets of data and a series of customer interviews, a different problem emerged.
Their product was still relevant. Customers wanted to buy it. The problem was that they didn’t like doing business with the company anymore because everything was too complicated. Too many hurdles to place an order, slow response from salespeople and inconsistent deliveries.
The data didn’t lie. And as a former colleague used to say, the plural of anecdotes isn’t data.
A Hunger For Data
I’m not naturally a number-crunching kind of guy. But I often ask a lot of questions like, how do you know that, what backs up your assumption, is this a fact or a hypothesis? An outsider, like a marketing consultant, has the luxury of stepping back from a situation and looking for evidence. Like a detective, I’m searching for proof, facts, and information that explains a root cause.
Companies that are well-run tend to have information at their fingertips. They can access critical data and have sharp employees who can analyze and provide critical insights. It is like a data buffet at the best companies where you can eat all the data you want.
A simple question like, how long do customers stay with you (on average) and what’s the lifetime value of a customer, shouldn’t require weeks of work. I’m surprised when it isn’t part of the daily conversation. When you see a high churn rate of new customers, patterns emerge. Qualitative interviews or customer discovery sessions can also reveal insights.
There are so many tools that can help you ask the better questions. Businesses should have key performance indicators easily accessible.
Before you jump into marketing solutions, I suggest you start with the facts and all the data you can eat.
When clients tell me the solution, I like to push back to understand the problem first. That’s what being strategic means to a marketing consultant. Need help digging into the data? Call me at 919 720 0995 or email me at jeffslater@themarketingsage.com – or book some time to talk on my calendar.
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