Done right, segmentation rocks.  It helps you see the market through the eyes of your brand’s consumers. And it lets you identify the emotional drivers that can help you grow your business. But to get the most from segmentation, you need to be in firm control.

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It takes more than a great product to inspire brand devotion. You must also understand your consumer’s state of mind. That state of mind is influenced by the world that surrounds them and reveals itself in the shape of trends. They are so prevalent that one or more of them will surely impact your brand and your business.

If you are interested in scheduling an in-person presentation to review these seven trends or to discuss how they are impacting your business, please give us a call at 608.256.6357 or send us an email.

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All Roads Lead to Choice. Consumers are demanding—and receiving—more control than ever before. Don’t want to watch TV commercials? Get DVR. Don’t want to hear radio ads? Use your MP3 player. Don’t want to be hit up by a better long distance carrier? Put your name on the no-call list.

With everything from mobile advertising to declaring you’re a fan of Culver’s custard to “elfing yourself” right into your friends’ in-boxes, consumers have been going cuckoo for control.

Now more than ever, the life and death of your brand rests with consumers. Do? Don’t? Will? Won’t? Yes? No? Essentially, the questions to ask are: Does your brand have an idea? Will Joe and Jane care enough to invite you into their lives? And can you deliver the interesting and intriguing content to the right place at the right time?

News flash: This isn’t news. But it does matter more with each passing minute. So the question becomes: What are you going to do about it?

Target Market Insights: The topic of endless discussion and debate. Whether or not to target is not the question. Who or what to target…aah, that’s where the real discussion begins.

Until recently, if you knew a person was 42, you could pretty much predict which soap he or she would buy. And it would be the same soap every time. Now that there are endless numbers of body washes, bar soaps and other clean-you-up items, can age really predict soap purchase? Not anymore. Do all 42-year-olds buy the same soap? Do they even buy the same soap from purchase to purchase? Not a chance! Therein lies the limitation of traditional consumer research.

Gaining true consumer understanding before developing strategies and crafting communications is critical if you want your marketing to succeed. Why? Because the profusion—as well as confusion—of consumer choice has so fragmented people’s options that you must delve deeper than ever before to truly understand your target’s underlying motivation for purchase and usage of products.

01. Why are insights so important?

02. How deep must you go?

03. How do you dig for meaningful insight?

This white paper explores all of the above, while revealing market-savvy ways—beyond traditional insight-gathering techniques—to help you gain deeper insight into the “whys,” “whens” and “hows” of human behavior. You will learn new ways to pay attention to your target market, new things to ask, new manners in which to ask them—all designed to help you make your product or brand better serve the needs of your target consumer.

There are really two components to instilling credibility for your company. You have significant control over the first––your own actions as a leader. The second is more difficult and has a substantial impact on how your company is perceived: How do your employees interact with your customers and suppliers? Have you been paying enough attention to these interactions?

Breaking trust can happen in many ways. Corporate executives are only deceiving themselves if they believe that financial performance alone will drive stock price. Today, more than ever, effective communications and ethical actions play a critical role.

A strong emotional connection between your target market and your brand can increase sales volumes, increase customer loyalty and enable you to charge up to 200 percent more than your competitors. Brands are increasingly being forced to choose between two positions: discount brand with little emotional connection and premium brand with a lot of emotional connection. This article describes the elusive nature of emotional connection and offers seven different ways you can strengthen the connection between your brand and your target market.

Emotional connection is a powerful way to link the heart of your target market with the soul of your brand. This connection is the degree to which your customers care about your brand beyond its rational attributes. It is more psychological than logical and more unconscious than conscious. Above all, emotional connection can make a big impact on your business.

Branding is not a new concept—it has been around almost as long as marketing has been a business discipline. But branding is a sexy term to toss around. Almost everybody is using “branding” in some form (brand identity, brand voice, brand management, brand awareness, brand building, brand essence, brand equity—you get the picture). The problem is that with so many people using it, the meaning and value of “branding” is being lost and misunderstood. The brand has become a clever advertising or communication idea—a quick fix. Subsequently, it has been boiled down to a cool logo, a graphic standards manual, a public relations tactic, a television campaign or a website. And yes, while these elements combine to contribute to your brand, they are not the foundation for a successful one.

While most management groups react to economic downturns by diversifying and aggressively cutting spending across the board, including expenditures associated with marketing, the evidence suggests that the contrarian view of bolstering the firm’s core business provides substantial support for increased share gains. In the long run, reduced marketing expenditures seem to have the exact opposite of the intended effect, insofar as they do not appear to provide improved ROIs or enhanced stock valuation.