Marketing Intelligence : Concept, Significance, Types and Uses

What is Marketing Intelligence?

Marketing Intelligence is defined as the process of collecting the data of the market in which they want to enter or currently working, with the motive to gain more information about the opportunities in the market and gain more profits. The process of Marketing Intelligence is carried out by organizations and companies to know more about market penetration, market segmentation, new competitors, and market metrics. The Marketing Intelligence process differs from business intelligence. With the help of the Marketing Intelligence process, companies and organizations can make better decisions while entering the market or change their strategies if required. This process helps the companies to stay ahead in the competition as compared to other products and their competitors.

For example, a laptop company is launching a new laptop in the market. They want to know about the right target audience for their product. The laptop is designed with the feature for playing games that require more memory, battery life, and responsiveness. In such a situation, the company can take surveys from its customers through online or offline mode. Here in the survey, majorly, the young generation will be interested in such laptops. Therefore the responses in the survey will be more from such age group. Based on this survey, the company can design its strategies and methods that would attract such children and do the marketing according. In the survey, the company can ask for the other features that need to be available for the customers. Therefore with the help of a Marketing Intelligence process companies can satisfy the requirements of customers and launch a successful product in the market.

Significance of Marketing Intelligence

Marketing Intelligence plays a vital role in businesses and markets. The business intelligence process mainly focuses on internal factors such as rates and processes whereas Marketing Intelligence focuses on the overall current situation of the market. Below are the importance of Marketing Intelligence:

1. Know more about Target Audience: The process of Marketing Intelligence helps to know more about the target audience by understanding the purchase patterns of customers, their needs, and expectations with the help of conducting surveys and quizzes. This is essential as the expectations of every customer differ from each other. Marketing Intelligence helps to know the needs of the audience. Businesses can then study more about the target audience and the products and services for them.

2. Know your Position in the Market: Marketing Intelligence helps to know about the position of your company in the market, as the market consists of many competitors and each competitor differs from one another. Although the aim of competitors might be the same, but, the type of service and product offered is different. Therefore each competitor holds a different position in the market. Marketing Intelligence tells about the moves and position of the competitors, what customers are interested in, etc. This analysis helps to know the position and then grow accordingly.

3. Study about the Product or Services: Conducting a Marketing Intelligence survey helps to study more about the products and services, the features of the product in which customers are interested as well as the features in which they are not interested. Marketing Intelligence helps to understand the features of the product in which customers are interested, the cost of products that are affordable for customers, the quality of products in which customers are satisfied and the marketing strategy used to attract more number of receiving.

4. Launch New Services and Products: Marketing Intelligence helps to understand the market trends and the customers. This analysis helps to launch new services and products in the market that are required or demanded by the customers. Companies can launch such products that are not easily available in the market. Such products also help to get more attention of the customers and gain a position in the competitive market.

5. Improve the Quality of Products and Services: The main advantage of Marketing Intelligence is that it helps to study the reviews of the customers. The quality of products is the major concern for all the customers. Therefore, after Marketing Intelligence, the companies can take preventive measures and change their strategies to provide the best quality products and services.

Types of Marketing Intelligence

Marketing research is a vast topic. It requires more time for the generation of efficient data. Therefore various qualitative methods and strategies are being used by the organisations and companies. Some of the most common methods used for such data collection are given below.

1. Personal Interviews

Personal interviews are generally lengthy, time-consuming, and expensive but provide relevant and efficient information. In this method, a company or organisation’s employees communicate face-to-face with the customers. It helps to understand customer expectations and get real feedback from them. However, personal interviews with the customer cannot help to understand all the topics in detail. Therefore this type of method is mostly not used by the companies.

2. Surveys

Surveys include a set of fixed and pre-decided questions that are asked to the customers. If more customers fill out the surveys more answers and information is collected. Within a very short period of time, surveys help to get different answers from multiple customers. Surveys are conducted in various forms according to the need and availability. Below are various forms in which surveys are conducted by the companies.

• Online Survey: In today’s age of technology, online surveys are considered one of the best ways to take surveys within less time and from a larger number of users. Today most of the customers also prefer to give online surveys due to its ease and less required time. Many times a simple Google form is shared among the users and they provide their responses in the form of answers through Google Forms.
• Mail Survey: Mail Surveys are considered one of the cheapest ways for gathering data and responses. Mail Survey consists of two things; either questionnaire or polls. In the questionnaire, there are a series of questions that are printed on paper or in online mail format, and the users need to provide it with their best answer. In polls, there is only one question and the users need to select one of the options only.
• Telephone Survey: Telephone surveys are more costlier than mail surveys. In telephone surveys, the company employees need to call the customers personally. Engaging the customers so that they can respond with interest is a major and most different task in telephone surveys. Therefore they are considered as one of the time-consuming methods. Very less people or customers listen to the employees and provide them with proper answers whereas many of them end up with the call very early.

3. Forms

Forms are also considered one of the easy ways to gather information. The form consists of various questions along with their answering options or sometimes even users can specify their answer. This method requires very little time. Most forms are Google Forms or can be Excel Sheets too. These forms are circulated among the customers through various online social media platforms.

4. Observation

Many times other methods used for the collection of data do not provide relevant and real data. Therefore, the method of observation works here. Observation helps to understand the purchasing patterns of the customers and their interests. It tells about the preferences of customers, their likes and dislikes, customer habits, product quality, and the price with which they are comfortable. Understanding the customers’ patterns properly through observation helps companies to change or update their methods and strategies.

5. Focus Groups

To represent a targeted market, a group of people are selected to represent a focus group. With the help of surveys created by the focus group companies can update or gain information about the customers. Focus Groups can work in online mode or offline mode. For this, a person is needed who goes on asking the questions to the selected group of people. Many times all have different views regarding the topic. With the help of a Focus Group, a company can get the opinion of customers on various points such as colour, size, price, durability, and simplicity of the product.

Uses of Marketing Intelligence

Marketing Intelligence is used for various purposes. It helps the business to understand customer trends, their interests, patterns of purchasing, and their likes and dislikes. Below are the use cases or applications where Marketing Intelligence is used.

1. Competitor Analysis

The market in which an organisation or company is working has many competitors. Although the ultimate motive of the product or services might be the same but, they differ in some features such as their appearance, price, and simplicity from one company to another. Marketing Intelligence thus helps to understand the strengths, weaknesses, and strategies used by the competitors. Understanding their overall way and strategies used through the process of Marketing Intelligence helps organisations to scale up their product and gain more profit by implementing or updating the required methods.

2. Channel Optimisation

Various marketing channels such as email marketing and social media platforms are used by the companies to increase their profit and sales. The process of Marketing Intelligence helps to understand whether the channels being used are efficient and perform a maximum number of marketing. If not, the channels used need to be updated or improved. The strategies they use are checked and optimisation is done to reach a maximum number of customers.

3. Risk Management

The process of Marketing Intelligence helps to manage the overall risks. It helps to identify the challenges and problems faced by the company. These risks and challenges arise due to various reasons such as negative or unwanted reviews among the customers, economic shifts, wrong practices being followed, etc. Therefore with the help of Marketing Intelligence, such risks can be reduced and overcome by implementing effective and required tools and strategies.

4. Strategies for Market Entry

While launching a new product or service into a new market, the process of Marketing Intelligence is necessary. It helps to understand the overall performance, behavior, and competitors that are present in the market. With the help of Marketing Intelligence process, the company can gain profits and avoid some of the unwanted practices in the beginning. By knowing more about market trends, users, and customer patterns, new companies can perform their best to compete with the other available competitors.

Advantages of Marketing Intelligence

1. Real-time Information: The process of Marketing Intelligence helps to gain information about the market in real-time. The trends in the market changes continuously, and according to the customer’s demands and expectations, they move from one product to another. Therefore, it is important to study real-time information that is provided by Marketing Intelligence.

2. Increase Revenue: The process of Marketing Intelligence helps to increase the overall revenue of the company by undertaking market trends and competition. According to the customer requirements, if products and services are provided, more customers are attracted. This eventually increases the overall income of the company and helps to gain more profits.

3. Launching Products Uniquely: Marketing Intelligence helps companies to launch their products uniquely. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of competitors, and the services provided helps companies to understand the points that need to be added to their products. If the shortcomings of other competitors are overcome by the company it helps to uniquely stand in the market.

4. Gain Information regarding Customers’ Behavior: Marketing Intelligence helps to get more information regarding customer satisfaction and their patterns of purchasing the product. This helps to fulfil the expectations of customers and gain their attention.

Disadvantages of Marketing Intelligence

1. Expensive Technique: Collecting data with artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques is an expensive method. For utilisation of such techniques, even skilled employees are also required. Therefore, using machine learning and artificial intelligence is more expensive as compared to manual work.

2. Effective only if Customers provide Clear Information: The process of Marketing Intelligence is more effective only if the customers provide clear information and responses. If customers provide false reviews, the companies cannot update or change the features accordingly.

3. Wrong Implementation: False or fake response from customers leads to wrong information. This wrong information leads to the wrong implementation of strategies and techniques. Overall it decreases the profit of the company as well as their position in the market.