In a world with ever-expanding data sets, market intelligence research has broadened far beyond the traditional market research of the past. One-off customer surveys, focus groups, and internal data just aren’t enough to drive meaningful growth. Today, thorough market intelligence research requires a huge collection of connected and contextualized data sets.
What kind of transformative insights should you expect from a robust market intelligence data platform like Skai? Here, we break down the six most important market intelligence insights that organizations have used to make better data-driven decisions.
What are market intelligence insights?
Market intelligence insights are clues gleaned from large data sets that companies and brands answer some of the most important strategic and tactical questions that a company may have about their customers, the customers’ needs, behaviors and preferences, and the market as a whole.
Here, we break down the six most important market intelligence insights that organizations have used to make better data-driven decisions.
Market Intelligence Insight #1: White Space Opportunities
Connected and contextualized data sets are critical to uncovering specific insights into the consumer, market, research, and innovation trends that reflect opportunities in your market. Comparing consumer discussions and sentiment against product claims is just one way to identify the unmet needs of consumers and surface new opportunities for product development, brand messaging, and more.
Surfacing white space opportunities in skincare
Here’s one example of how Skai’s market intelligence insights uncover white space opportunities. A leading skincare brand wanted to grow its presence in Asia but struggled to identify the consumer and product gaps that would make that possible. Relying upon traditional market research intelligence like surveys and focus groups meant their approach was hard to scale and lacked the predictive power to drive innovation.
The brand turned to Skai for the connected, contextualized data that would reveal unique insights for this market and consumer base. Detailed insights were key; the brand needed to know which specific product claims, ingredients, and benefits would appeal to Asian consumers in order to successfully align their R&D and marketing teams. Replacing their traditional marketing research with Skai’s market intelligence research paid off. In 2020, net sales grew by double digits across every channel, with double-digit growth in every product category.
Market Intelligence Research Insight #2: Trend Tracking
You need access to huge amounts of data to identify emerging trends and separate them from passing fads. Comparing rising topics in consumer and key opinion leader (KOL) discussions with the current market landscape can reveal the biggest opportunities for growth, the major competitors you’ll face, and the product features and benefits you should focus on in your marketing to appeal to the audience driving the trend. Ranking and scoring emerging trends based on their future sales value empowers you to make informed product development decisions.
Capitalizing on trends in the pet food market
A leading pet food company asked Skai to analyze a nascent trend: plant-based pet food protein. The first step was to identify all products in the market that claimed to contain plant-based proteins and explore the factors that predicted higher sales. Our research revealed that “ingredient-central” products – or those with limited additional ingredients beyond the primary plant-based protein – were preferred over products with many ingredients. The plant-based proteins that stood alone or with few other ingredients were perceived as higher quality than other proteins.
This exercise identified the plant-based proteins that were on the rise and the overall product makeup that would best appeal to the target consumer. The explanation of why that protein would rise in popularity was key to meeting customer expectations, establishing effective marketing messaging, and ultimately driving success with a new product.
Market Intelligence Data Insight #3: Brand Perception
Market intelligence data can tell you what consumers are saying and thinking about your brand, how your brand compares to the overall market, and what emerging sentiments may pose a threat to the brand equity you’ve already built. Armed with this information, you can adjust your messaging and marketing strategies to better align with consumer sensibilities and cultural change.
Rebranding knowledgeably with market intelligence insights
Skai’s brand perception insights helped a food manufacturer manage the rebranding of a product whose existing name and logo had come under heavy criticism for promoting racial stereotypes. A deep dive into consumer discussions and brand activities revealed that people of color disapproved of both the original brand as well as the revamp, as it seemed disingenuous. Armed with this data, the food manufacturer reinforced their commitment to doing right by this segment of the population with a donation of $4.5M to Black Lives Matter causes.
Market Intelligence Research Insight #4: Marketing Effectiveness
Make sure your marketing spend is getting the return you expect. With Skai’s market intelligence insights, you can optimize the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns by surfacing the most effective audiences, messages, timing, and channels for promotion. (If you advertise on Amazon, consider augmenting your Skai data with Amazon’s own marketing intelligence offerings to stay competitive in that channel.)
How market intelligence research helped PepsiCo reach a gamer market
PepsiCo used Skai’s insights to get closer to their gamer customer base. Mountain Dew was a long-time favorite soda of this audience, and PepsiCo wanted to keep it that way by engaging them further with the brand. Skai data helped PepsiCo develop new flavor profiles and launch a new Game Fuel drink made specifically for gamers. The launch was a huge success, driving a big boost in revenue and a 96% positive sentiment score from the targeted customer segment.
Market Intelligence Insight #5: Merger & Acquisition Targets
Identifying the right targets for a merger or acquisition is a long, error- and bias-prone process when done the traditional way. With Skai, you can identify the relevant players quickly, validate the targets you’re considering using traditional methods, and rank all targets based on your organization’s unique strategy and needs based on qualitative assessments, predicted growth, and other unique indicators.
Analysis like this is only possible through multiple connected, contextualized data sets that identify emerging brands and trends, auspicious new regions, and other predictions.
Predictive modeling identifies pet food M&A targets
A leading pet food brand wanted to identify small M&A targets with $100k+ in annual sales growth and assess each against a variety of benchmarks. Skai developed predictive models that ultimately identified five strong growth indicators and the driver combinations that were most likely to predict future success. Of the five most promising emerging brands that Skai identified in April 2020, four have since been acquired or received significant investment.
Market Intelligence Research Insight #6: Competition Monitoring
With Skai, you can keep an eye on all aspects of your competition: their brand positioning, market share, product claims, impact on your brand’s performance, new product launches, and trend alignment. Armed with this knowledge, you can stay one step ahead and dodge threats to your own brand.
Watching competitors in the snack food market
Skai’s market intelligence insights were key to helping a snack food brand monitor competitors in the reduced-calorie protein bar world. Deep, broad, connected data sets on influencer discussions, new products, reduced-calorie protein bar sales, consumer discussions, patents, and more made it possible to combine data types and drill down into specifics, such as consumer discussions around specific product claims or patent filings by brand. With a deep understanding of the competitive landscape, the snack food brand was able to better position their products for success.
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