Incorporating Consumer Insight into Marketing

From Jeffrey D. Mills of ThinkVine –

The following article, posted on MediaPost this morning, is my attempt to describe in layman’s terms why and how to incorporate consumer insight into marketing planning. Specifically, four (4) marketplace dynamics have converged that are forcing many businesses to seek out a better way to plan their marketing spends:

1. Heightened emphasis on measuring & optimizing marketing return-on-investment (MROI)
2. A changing consumer landscape (see Ad Age article on the “death” of the average consumer)
3. A pace of change (behavior, perceptions, word-of-mouth) that happens far more frequently than once-a-year marketing planning can keep up with
4. Fragmentation of media that is showing no signs of slowing down (not just new media, but evolving cross effects between media types)

Getting your arms around this new reality not only requires new thinking, but new approaches to marketing planning. Core to my point is the realization that understanding the consumer has to come back to the forefront ... The article can be read at its source at Mediapost.

Jeffrey Mills | Vice President, Marketing & Client Management | 513-477-1729 Office | http://www.thinkvine.com