I favorited not so long ago a tweet of RetailWire with this headline. And indeed the question is really good. For the longest time, with the rise of the information technologies, marketers have considered customer data as the Saint Graal of marketing. CRM tools have also thrived on this idea. Information and the new technologies allowing to analyze them provided the certainty to propose the best proposal to customers, and then secure sales growth.
But then, Steve Jobs raised as the marketing guru of its generation. Steve Jobs considered that he should not listened to customers demand for two main reasons:
- Customers don't really know what they want
- How could you propose something that stands out of the competition if you base your products on the same info than the other companies own?
And hence, Steve Jobs proposed products that were not expected or asked by customers. And it blowed their mind.
Now, you don't create the Ipad or the Iphone every year. And probably there are those two approaches in marketing:
- One based on gut, on the ability to think out of the box
- One based on customer data, in order to respond to the everyday demand.
I believe that Gut and Data are as important. It just depends on the situation.
Now new technologies, especially neuromarketing, which allows to better understand customers' behaviors, may give better insights and data to make decisions for marketers.
What do you think about it?
