How professional insights services make your team more productive

If you’re a market research or marketing professional, you’ve probably heard or said this phrase “If only I had the time…” one too many times.

From trying to get studies or ad campaigns up and running, to switching to data reviews, to meeting with stakeholders, it’s hard to spend time truly diving into your data. And how can you make more informed decisions if you don’t have the time to see what’s truly resonating with your consumer? 

After all, making smart business decisions isn’t just about having data — it’s about knowing how to use it. According to a report by Forrester, companies that leverage customer insights outperform their peers by 85% in sales growth. 

In this article, I’ll highlight the top four things you may not typically have time for, but certainly should be doing with your data, how to tackle common roadblocks along the way and how bringing on a professional services team can help you get there.

Before you can create a successful strategy, you need to know who you’re talking to. 

Consumer insights platforms and services help businesses build detailed customer profiles by allowing you to analyze preferences, demographics, behaviors and purchasing habits. The better you understand your audience, the more effective your marketing efforts will be.

The challenge: Limited visibility into your audience

Many brands struggle to get a complete picture of their customers because their data is scattered or outdated. For example, a study by McKinsey found that 56% of marketers feel they don’t have a unified view of their customers, making it difficult to personalize campaigns effectively.

The fix: Combine different research methods

• Run surveys, interviews and focus groups to get firsthand insights directly from customers. For example, PepsiCo frequently uses consumer surveys and focus groups to test new product ideas before launching them.

• Use analytics tools to track online behavior and social media sentiment. Starbucks, for instance, leverages AI to analyze customer feedback on Twitter and adjust its marketing strategies accordingly.

• Try AI-driven audience segmentation to uncover hidden trends and patterns. Brands like Netflix use AI-powered recommendation engines to personalize content based on past viewing behaviors.

🤝 While you may turn to more sophisticated tools that take some of the burden off you, it doesn't mean you'll have time to launch them. Professional insights services can help consolidate data from multiple sources, ensuring brands get a unified and up-to-date perspective on customer behavior to make more informed, data-backed marketing decisions.

When was the last time you were able to take a few hours to just dig into the data from your last study or campaign? I’ll wait. 

In reality, while having tons of data is great, it’s only valuable if you know what to do with it. Known in some circles as a “fishing expedition,” it’s more likely you’ll get time to actually go fishing than it is that you’ll get time to fish for insights in the data from your campaigns.

But you need to find the stories hidden in the numbers. Without the full picture, how are you going to paint the picture for your stakeholders and help them better understand the meaning behind the data or what really worked from that last ad campaign?

The challenge: Data overload with no clear takeaways

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by massive amounts of data, especially when insights are scattered across different platforms. A survey by Experian found that 95% of businesses face challenges in managing unstructured data effectively.

The fix: Use the right tools to simplify analysis

• Tap into insights platforms like Zappi, Power BI, Tableau or Looker to create clear, interactive dashboards that make consumer data easy to understand.

• Apply machine learning to spot patterns and predict trends. Retail giant Walmart, for example, uses predictive analytics to forecast demand and manage inventory efficiently.

• Automate reporting so your team always has up-to-date insights at their fingertips.

🤝 Professional insights services simplify the process of data analysis by helping businesses extract meaningful patterns from vast amounts of data, ensuring that key insights don’t get lost in the noise.

Don’t you wish your data had a longer shelf life? It often feels like by the time you’ve delivered recommendations from one campaign, it’s time to spin up another one. 

The ability to organize the data and projects you’ve run with others would make all lives on your teams easier.

Unsurprisingly, according to a McKinsey study, companies that break down silos increase efficiency by up to 40%. That’s why once you have your insights, you need to make them accessible and actionable. If different teams aren’t aligned, valuable insights can slip through the cracks. 

The challenge: Insights stuck in silos

When marketing, sales and product teams work separately, they might miss important connections that could drive business success. That’s why it’s so important to make sure your insights across departments are connected.

The fix: Create a centralized hub for insights

• Use knowledge-sharing platforms like Zappi, Confluence or Notion to store and distribute research findings across teams.

• Host cross-functional meetings to align teams on key insights. For example, Amazon holds weekly interdepartmental data review sessions to ensure alignment.

• Standardize reports so everyone speaks the same language when discussing data. This prevents misinterpretation and ensures consistency.

🤝 Professional insights services can help facilitate knowledge-sharing by centralizing data in one accessible platform, allowing for collaboration across departments and ensuring that all teams work with the same set of insights for consistency.

Spotting recurring themes in your insights can help shape smarter, more effective strategies in the future. Brands that consistently analyze past campaign data improve their ROI by 15%, according to Deloitte. 

Of course, that all makes sense — why wouldn’t you want to make all of the work your team does more easily searched? But most of the time, you have to choose between the nice-to-haves and the need-to-haves. And there’s a lot of tasks that typically outweigh tagging all those projects. 

The challenge: Losing track of trends over time

Without a system for tagging and categorizing insights, valuable patterns might go unnoticed. This can lead to missed opportunities, like failing to recognize an emerging market trend that competitors are already acting on.

The fix: Build a framework for tracking trends

• Use AI-powered tools to automatically tag and categorize insights. Google, for example, uses machine learning to track search trends and inform advertising strategies.

• Set up a system to monitor long-term shifts in consumer behavior. 

• Create a feedback loop where past campaign results inform future decisions. For example, Spotify refines its playlists and ad placements based on continuous analysis of listener behavior.

🤝 Professional insights services can streamline trend analysis by automatically categorizing and tagging recurring patterns in data that help to monitor consumer behavior shifts over time. With these capabilities, brands can ensure that past learnings inform future strategies, maximizing campaign effectiveness.

Now that you’re dreaming of a simpler life where you can slice and dice data, extract rich insights from multiple projects and otherwise make the most of your work, how can you make that a reality? 

Here are the two key ways to get the insights you need:

1. Leverage your analytics platform in real time

It’s controversial, we know, but the simplest idea is often the right one. If you are spending too much time building decks, try to get away from them when you can.

You can save time by leveraging a consumer analytics platform like Zappi with crosstabs, charting, filtering and analysis — particularly if you can pull it up in the moment of need. 

It may be a cultural shift for your organization, but as long as you are getting the answer they need when they need it, the shift should be an easy sell.

2. Get expert help through professional services 

If you don’t have the time or resources to do it yourself, we’re excited to share that we now offer a Professional Services Suite, with expert-led solutions designed to supercharge your insights journey. 

“Our customers get the most out of our platform when they have optimized their setup to be able to unlock the value of the dataset. That's why we designed our services to help all our customers benefit from our experience working with successful brands across the globe to get more value without the hard work.”

- Sinead Jefferies, Zappi SVP of Professional Services

Whether you need hands-on project support or strategic guidance to get the most out of your consumer data, we’ve got you covered.

Built around two key pillars: Project services and Strategic services, you can be sure you get the right level of expertise at every stage of your insights journey.

Zappi Professional Services are here to ensure you get the most out of our platform — whether it's to take work off your plate or unlock deeper, more strategic insights for your business.

If you're ready to elevate your research game, learn more about Zappi Professional Services here.