Data points vs data insights: what is the difference?
Doing marketing research results in a lot of data, which has to be analyzed to become relevant information for a company.
After this process of analysis, the insights generated can be used for decision-making in different departments.
Although this simple definition explains the difference between data points and insights, confusion regarding these two terms is very common.
Therefore, this article aims to explain the differences between data points and insights in marketing research.
Data Points
Nowadays, every company has a lot of data available in their systems. And because of the expansion of the internet, companies have been using websites and social media a lot. So, data acquisition is becoming increasingly easy and common.
When someone accesses a company’s website and decides to scroll down the page, for example, all the actions taken are registered and may or may not be used by this business.
Considering marketing research, data points consist of information obtained from people participating in it. The data points are raw and must undergo some type of analysis in order to be used for any decision in a company.
At the same time, when a company organizes its marketing research strategy, it’s fundamental to add context to the data collected. Even though there are many ways of collecting data nowadays, it’s necessary to do something with it before it can tell anything to the person analyzing it.
This is where insights take place.
Insights
When insight is obtained, it means data analysis was done and those data points were transformed into relevant information. This is different from having a report because insights result from exploring the data, not only organizing it into graphs and summaries.
After conducting marketing research and getting insights from it, businesses are able to make better decisions. Also, they can identify opportunities for products, services, or internal processes improvement.
It’s through insights that new marketing actions happen, as well as the development of companies focused on what the target audience needs.
Although it seems simple when put like this, getting relevant insight from data points is not so easy. Usually, this is one of the most difficult stages of marketing research.
Aiming at insights that really add something to the business, the right questions must be asked throughout the marketing research and when the analysis takes place. After all, with good quality insight, a company can tell the story of what is happening with the business, how well customers interact with it, and if they are willing to continue buying from the company.
The natural consequence of having good insights is that it will be easier to see the reality of what is happening to the business.
How do data points influence insights?
Every insight is made of data points, but not all data points will become insights. Considering this, it’s possible to have marketing research with loads of data, but few insights.
In order to get as many insights from data points as possible, there are some aspects that must be considered.
First of all, make a list of the answers that must be taken from data points. Then, come up with the questions that will help you achieve those answers. The best way to succeed here is to ask specific questions that will lead to specific answers.
Another important aspect is not to rush into the analysis, being more interesting to take enough time to solve the problems rather than aiming at fast results.
Finally, something else that must be considered is complex groups of data. If there is much personal information collected, it might be a good idea to reduce this large amount of data into smaller pieces.
The power of insights for marketing research
When a company is data-driven it means the decisions are made considering real and accurate data. This is also true for the marketing department, which can be more assertive when considering insights to determine the actions to be taken next.
It’s already well-known that data points are important for companies, but the real importance of it is that rich insights can be generated.
So it doesn’t really matter if the company has a lot of data points if they can’t use them for strategic actions such as finding insights into them.
When marketing research results in good insights for the company, it means it was done successfully. Therefore, more investment of time and money might be put into this strategy and a positive cycle of insights is created.