Do We Know What Our Customers Really Want from Us?
Leveraging Customer Insights to Increase Sales Growth
TECHNOLOGY & BIG IDEAS
Kimberly Cockrell Corley
7/26/20244 min read


Over the past month, I’ve been busy! Amidst hosting a steady stream of visiting family members including nieces and nephews on extreme sugar highs, I launched a business, said goodbye to the safety net of a full-time paycheck, created a website, and have been spending tons of time with inspiring movers and shakers. Despite a few 3am “what the heck am I doing???” jolts from slumber, it has been totally rewarding, and the clients I’m working with are making it a chapter to remember!
Having just gone through the process of taking my own business to market and thinking through my strategy for getting the word out, a conversation that I had with a tech founder really got my wheels turning. It sparked the idea for this post on using strategic insights to truly understand our customers.
60% of Marketing Dollars Are Wasted
A client recently introduced me to Lauren Wallett, a marketing powerhouse with over 20 years of experience at major companies and agencies. Lauren merges creative strategy with cold, hard customer insights, creating a powerful secret sauce. She launched Creatrix SaaS, a platform that transforms market research and social listening into actionable strategic intelligence.
Lauren shared a startling statistic: 60% of marketing dollars are wasted because marketers don’t know how to connect with their customers (1). We discussed several common corporate missteps she frequently encounters such as assuming to know what our customers love about us and relying on generic, AI-generated solutions to inform our decision-making.
One tale of horror Lauren described was that of a prominent toy and games manufacturer who, believing digital gameplay appealing to tech savvy kids was what their customers wanted, doubled down on futuristic concepts. However, Creatrix SaaS analyzed readily available data from that manufacturer’s customers proving that they valued nostalgia, warm childhood memories, and familiar product lines. This is where the focus should have been.
The True Cost of Ignoring Customer Insights
The thought of wasted marketing dollars makes our skin crawl, but the true cost of ignoring customer insights goes far beyond financial loss. It affects every aspect of our business, from product development to customer satisfaction, and ultimately undermines our competitive edge and has the potential to sink a company.
Consider this: Only 38% of businesses use customer insights to drive decisions (2). However, only 24% of new products are successful after launch, and 92% of customers will leave a brand they love after two or more negative interactions (3).
The Advantage of Leveraging Customer Insights
In contrast, companies that leverage customer insights outperform their peers by 85% in sales growth and 25% in gross margin (4). No brainer, right? So how do we do it?
How Can We Leverage Customer Insights to Have a Better Pulse on What Our Customers Want?
I asked Lauren to weigh in. While Lauren’s superpower is marketing and creative strategy, her advice applies to every piece of the business.
Reverse Engineer Your Process: “Start with the results you want to achieve such as engagement and growth and select your technology accordingly.” For instance, if your goal is to increase customer engagement, choose analytics tools that track and measure customer interactions across multiple channels.
Start with a Hypothesis and Audit the Best Performers: “Know what ideas you’re validating the market against and don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis. What matters most is what your customers want to buy. Start with the best performing data and ignore the rest.” Gather data from top-performing products or services. Validate your hypothesis by comparing sales and customer feedback, then focus on enhancing winning aspects.
Use a Collaborative System: “Don't silo your team. Data should inform every strategy from every department. Use a platform that everyone can easily interpret so there’s zero chance of data misinterpretation.” For example, implement a customer relationship management (CRM) system that integrates data from sales, marketing, and customer service. This allows all departments to access and act on the same customer insights, ensuring a unified approach.
Forget Demographics and Focus on Psychographics: “If you are selling, it doesn’t matter who or where your customers are, but that you know how to connect with them. Humans are more nuanced than their age, gender, and location. Good marketing messaging connects to the heart – and you’ll connect to hearts when you learn how to listen to what your audience is telling you.” For instance, instead of targeting customers based solely on age or location, analyze their interests, values, and lifestyle.
Stay Flexible with Your Strategy: “The data often reveals surprising facts. Your creative strategy and other old ideas may need to change to best reflect what your customer wants. You don’t need to be fixed on your roadmap when shortcuts to success are revealed.”
Stop Assuming. Start Listening.
Lauren’s Creative SaaS technology is a stellar option for leveraging customer insights to transform your business strategies and outcomes, and it’s an exciting glimpse into the future of leveraging cutting-edge tech to enhance our bond with customers. Whatever platform or system for gathering customer insights you choose; by listening to what your customers tell you and fostering a customer-centric culture, you ensure everything that you do resonates deeply and drives significant growth.
If you’re ready to bring on a fractional Chief Customer Officer (CCO) to champion these best practices in your organization, let’s chat. So, let’s roll up our sleeves and dive into the data—your next big breakthrough might just be a customer insight away!
Sources:
(1) Proxima Group
(2) Forrester
(3) PDMA
(4) McKinsey

