Digging for Gold

In the age of endless data, leaders seek insight-driven strategies to make informed decisions. However, to effectively shape strategies based on insights we need to be creating environments that enable our teams to be insight-led.

First, let’s take a look at what are these ‘insights’ that everyone is looking for, and why they are important.

According to my good friend, ChatGPT, “Insights are deep understandings derived from data, customer behavior, and market trends that help businesses make informed decisions.”

In other words, insights are the stories the data is telling us about how the business is performing. They show changes in consumer behavior, market trends, and motivations. Who is buying (or giving) what, when, how and to some extent why.

Insights are the underlying foundation that points you in the right direction and allows you to make decisions based on reality, rather than opinion or feels. It removes a lot of the guesswork and risk from strategic planning and makes it, well, strategic.

Branding and marketing that isn’t based on insights is just a shot in the dark.

So let’s take a look at how you can set your teams up to uncover the insights that can maximise the impact of your marketing efforts and your organisation.

Tell Me Why

Hoping to find good insights without a plan and structure around what you’re looking for and why is like digging in your backyard and hoping to find gold. All you end up with is a pile of rocks. 

Start with the purpose of the organisation – why do you exist? Purpose should be the foundation to all insights and strategy.

Keep the Vision and Mission front and centre in all strategic planning and reporting, this is your north star. No matter how good an idea may sound or perform, if it isn’t helping you get closer to achieving your mission and vision it isn’t right for you.

Crafting your reporting around Vision, Mission and Objectives has a two-pronged benefit, it reveals whether or not you are heading in the right direction, and it also provides your team with clarity, gives purpose to the task and motivates them to dedicate time and energy to creating quality insights and action plans.

Simplify & Clarify 

With the purpose in mind, define your organisation’s objectives – what are you trying to achieve? What role does each business unit play in achieving the mission and vision?

We don’t want data for data’s sake, we want it to help us know if we’re on the right track. View it as your GPS, is it showing that you’re heading in the right direction, or is the voice shouting at you to reroute?

The goal here is to be as clear as possible about what you are measuring.

Once you have your objectives clearly defined and articulated, identify the metrics that will indicate whether or not you are tracking towards meeting those objectives.

For example, say your organisation is tackling climate change, your objectives may be to “Educate audiences about the factors influencing climate change” and “Activate audiences to change their behaviour to lower their impact on the environment”. You would want to review the data that shows how effectively you are educating and activating your audience. Metrics like Email subscribes, open and click through rates, website traffic to key educational content pages, social media engagement, and report downloads are some indicators of how people are engaging with your content. Depending on the actions you’re asking people to take, metrics like downloading How To Guides, signing a petition, or writing to their local politicians, are some ways you can measure activation. 

The next step is to decide on how you will present your reports. It may choose to allocate the responsibility one team member to pull together a monthly report and present that to the team. Or it may suit your team best to create a dashboard that displays the live data from various sources for anyone in the team to review at any time. Whatever your preferred reporting method, having a set method or approach will take the ambiguity out of reporting, set expectations and will make it much more likely to happen.

Clarity and simplicity are key.

Set Reporting Rhythms 

Humans are creatures of habit. We thrive on repetition and structure.  

Regular rhythms in a business create clarity, consistency, and momentum, helping teams stay focused and aligned. Whether it’s weekly, monthly, or quarterly, these routines ensure that progress is tracked, challenges are addressed early, and opportunities are seized. They also foster accountability, improve communication, and build a culture of continuous improvement. 

Time passes quickly and if reviewing performance isn’t intentionally scheduled it can be easy to get distracted by the day-to-day and not stop to check progress. By establishing predictable rhythms, you enable your team to be more efficient, adapt to change, and drive sustained growth.

Being truly insight driven is as much about the culture of your team as it is about tools and schedules. If you don’t have buy-in from your team it will at best be an uphill battle, but more likely just won’t be prioritised and will fall to the wayside.

While it’s important to have systems in place, it is even more effective when everyone approaches their work with an open and inquisitive mind, a curiosity to understand what’s driving performance and an eagerness to shift and improve.