Marketers: It Might Be Time To Get Into The Insight Biz

How many of us have given real thought to just what “insight” is? Doug Kessler, creative director at U.K.-based B2B agency Velocity Partners, has.

Marketers: It Might Be Time To Get Into The Insight Biz

There’s much talk these days of content marketing, thought leadership, and insight. But how many of us have given thought—real thought—to just what “insight” is?

Doug Kessler has. Kessler, creative director at U.K.-based B2B agency Velocity Partners, took to the stage today at Content Marketing World, in Cleveland, to delve into the subject during his talk, “The Power of Insight in Content Marketing.”

Kessler provided a few definitions of insight to set the tone—some “insight about insight,” as Kessler meta-commented: “Insight is …

… a non-obvious understanding about customers. (Paul Laughlin)

… upgrading of a world view to better reflect reality (Chris Anderson)

… upgrading of a world view to make it more interesting (Kessler, emendation)

… the flash of gold we sometimes see as we pan for meaning (Kessler)

So what isn’t insight? “Data, eye candy, and curation are nice, but they are not insight,” Kessler said. “Real insight requires empathy and talent to turn it into content, and that turns it into money. It stops people in their tracks, it elevates the brand, it offers vision, and it triggers action.”

So why do so few marketers—content marketers or not—deal in insight? “Mainly because it’s abstract, rare, fragile, and risky,” Kessler said. “And it looks hard, so most marketers don’t even try. They are not in the insight business.”

But if one is a marketer who is interested in being in the content biz, how might one go about it? Kessler set down 11 insight tips. (Yes, 11. Some in the audience were sure he was stopping at 10, but he seemed to add that last one just to be perverse).

Read previous CMWorld article: “‘Fully Commit To Content Marketing Or Just Buy Ads’”