What are strategic insights?

How Axia deep dives into clients’ brand, consumers, and competition

When creating a communications, PR, or marketing strategy for a company, it can be tricky to determine what the company needs help with and where and how it can improve.

Axia Public Relations’ strategic insights process is a tool we use for every client as a deep dive into the company’s brand, consumers (or buyers), and competitors. We start by asking the client three questions:

1. What are your top one to three business issues?

2. What are the one to three titles for your ideal target customers?

3. Who are your top three to five direct or largest competitors?

From there, we begin our initial research.

Brand insight

We ask the questions: What is the brand? How is it viewed? How is it positioned and marketed?

What we look for: The brand’s perception relative to the competition, tone, positioning, current and past marketing, mission, and vision

Where we look: Advertising, website, news releases, annual reports, analyst reports, investor relations, company research, industry news sites and publications, industry and financial analysts, industry associations, industry research including industry trade media, industry research from Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Dun & Bradstreet, Forrester, Gartner, Hoover’s, McKinsey, MRI-Simmons, and more.

Consumer (Buyer) insight

We ask the questions: How do consumers think and feel about a brand? What is the consumer’s relationship with the brand? What does the consumer need? What are consumers’ top deciding factors when purchasing? Who is the target audience?

What we look for: Habits and practices, usage, attitudes and emotions, segmentation, and fit with the lifestyle

Where we look: Company research, secondary research, associations and trade groups, government reports, industry and financial analysts, in-person observations, the Pew Research Center, Google search, Simmons, MRI, Mintel

Competition insight

We ask the questions: Who are they? What do they sell? How are they positioned? What benefits do they leverage? How healthy is their company?

What we look for: Targets and positioning, go-to-market tactics, benefits, quality, features, pricing, sales, market share trends, profitability, ownership, partners

Where we look: Year-to-year comparison, reports, ads, research, industry news sites and blogs, Google search, public library databases, Tripadvisor, consumer reports, interview consumers and retailers. Original research: Go to stores and talk to who sells and who buys.

Overall analysis

Once initial research is complete for the brand, consumers, and competition, we then summarize each section (brand, consumers, and competition) with one statement. 

Overall insight

After each statement is written for each section, we write one overall insight for the company. The insight needs to have judgment and be based on emotion. The more emotion these words use in the overall insight, the more impactful the insight will be. We use judgment instead of objective statements to keep the insight specific to the client and provide a clear insight on what the client needs to do to change.

Here are some examples of past strategic insight statements that have won us high praise, including standing ovations, from clients:

• The company has a favorable following, but if it wants to compete with well-known national brands, it must position itself as a quick and healthy protein option for Millennials and their families.

• The company can lead the way in the insurtech space by refining its online identity.

• If Company wants to scale its sales, it will need to build better relationships online and in person.

Want to learn more about Axia’s strategic insights process? Watch this video on how we walk through the entire process.

What are our clients saying about Axia's strategic insights?

• "This process synthesized the direction of where we're going, gave us validation, and demonstrated demand for it in the marketplace." – Joelle Marquis, Lifting Clay 

• "I'm so glad we did this. This insight is exactly what we've been looking for from a marketing partner." – Steven Kaufman, Urban Mining 

Clarissa shares client messages across news, social, and web media. Clients love her work ethic and results-driven approach. Clarissa joined Axia in August 2019.