6 Game-Changing Marketing Insights I Uncovered in 2024

LEGO’s marketing power lies in influencer marketing and user-generated content. The famous Danish construction toy brand is especially active on TikTok, connecting with younger audiences. This is just one of many marketing insights showing how LEGO adapts to trends and keeps a strong connection with its fans. How can you use your marketing insights to build a better strategy? Let’s explore!

Marketing insights are findings and observations about market trends, consumer behavior, and competitors that help in making reasonable business decisions. They are usually based on detailed data analysis and help adjust marketing strategies to better meet customer needs and improve overall marketing performance.

What are marketing insights?

Let’s clarify what marketing insights are (and what they are not).

Marketing insights are findings you can extract from:

• Campaigns
• Social media engagement
• Customer surveys
• Website analytics
• Email marketing performance
• Other marketing efforts

So, when we talk about marketing insights, we should avoid confusing them with market research, market insights, or general industry trends. These concepts go beyond the scope of pure marketing.

Importantly, marketing insights are not raw data or isolated marketing metrics.

Instead, they go further by translating the meaning behind those data points into actionable strategies.

They help you understand the why behind customer behavior and the how to improve your marketing efforts.

Moreover, rather than focusing on the numbers, marketing insights reveal deeper patterns, motivations, and opportunities.

This allows you to refine your messaging, target the right audience, and optimize campaigns for more efficient results.

Essentially, insights turn data into meaningful actions that can drive growth and success for your brand.

Finally, it’s important to note that marketing insights are not marketing analytics. They are the result of this analytical process.

6 key marketing insights:

01 Media mentions act as trustworthy social proof

In my opinion, marketing insights resulting from the analysis of media mentions are underrated.

Many brands overlook the power of being featured in reputable media outlets, yet these mentions can significantly boost your brand visibility and credibility.

That’s super important as people have a natural tendency to follow the opinions and behaviors of others – especially when those opinions come from publicly respected sources or users they trust.

It’s scientifically proven.

Moreover, media mentions carry a lot of important data, such as the sentiment toward your brand, topics that trigger your focus groups, social media platforms that generate the most positive (or negative) buzz around your brand, etc.

Combined, tracking and understanding your media mentions gives you dozens of valuable insights about your brand reputation & overall perception that you can use to upgrade your marketing strategy.

How to turn it into action?

Start by actively monitoring media mentions. The best way to do it is to use a media monitoring tool like Brand24.

Firstly, Brand24 tracks a lot of online sources people use to discuss brands. These are:

• Social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, Telegram, Twitch, etc.)
• Media outlets, blogs, podcasts, video sites, newsletters, review sites, and other websites.

In other words, you’ll never miss a media mention about your brand!

Secondly, next to gathering all the media mentions in one place, Brand24 offers handy analytics features.

They help you extract the most important marketing data and – thanks to the support of AI solutions – transform them into the best market insights.

02 Influencer collaborations are the easiest way to reach a new audience

Influencers work in a very similar way as media mentions.

Their opinions, reviews, comments, and recommendations act as a form of social proof that can significantly impact the perception of your brand.

Additionally, influencer collaborations are the easiest way to reach with your brand message or product to a new audience.

The more engaged the influencer’s audience is, the more likely their followers are to trust your brand.

Simply, when an influencer with a loyal fanbase talks about your product, it creates an authentic connection that traditional advertising often lacks.

It’s worth noting that, according to the State of Influencer Marketing 2024 report, nano influencers (with less than 10,000 followers) generate the highest engagement rate (4.39%).

It means that you should look for people with an audience consisting of your target market.

So, it’s not just about the size of the influencer’s following but about the relevance of their audience to your brand.

How to turn it into action?

In practice, you can discover your (or your competitors’) top influencers, i.e., with Brand24.

Simply visit the Influencers tab and check the profiles that act as your most valuable brand ambassadors. Use relevant filters to narrow down your results, choose one or two influencers first, and reach out to them!

Make sure to monitor the results of your collaboration by tracking engagement & conversions and adjust your strategy as needed.

This will help you build long-term, impactful influencer relationships that support your brand goals.

03 Tracking mentions can save you from a PR crisis

Marketing insights extracted from media mentions play one more role – they act as whistleblowers for potential brand crises.

By doing the sentiment analysis and measuring the volume of mentions about your brand, you can quickly identify negative trends, unhappy customers, hateful haters, or dirty games played by your competitors (yeah, it sometimes happens).

Following the “better safe than sorry” rule, identifying potential crises early can help prevent escalation or reduce the impact of a brand reputation crisis.

How to turn it into action?

One of the best ways to protect yourself from potential brand crises is to implement so-called Storm Alerts, which will inform you about sudden changes in the quantity and quality of your brand mentions.

You just need to define the rules that turn on the automatic reports (i.e., if the percent change in mention volume exceeds 200%).

Below, you can see the example of how I set Storm Alerts rules for LEGO.

04 Short-form videos can boost your social media reach quickly

Short-form videos are one of the most engaging types of content on social media. They deliver the highest Return On Investment (ROI) compared to other formats.

Used wisely and strategically, short-for videos spread throughout social platforms like a virus and can drive you a lot of traffic.

Moreover, short videos play a crucial role in ad strategies. According to Statista, 69% of marketers invest in this form of advertising.

Therefore, you should seriously consider implementing them in your marketing campaigns or—if you haven’t done so yet – optimizing your strategy to maximize their potential.

Regardless of your niche, I am 100% sure that you can utilize short-form videos to engage your audience, boost brand awareness, create captivating ads, and increase conversions.

Whether you’re showing products, creating educational content, or showing what’s going on behind the scenes, short-form videos allow you to communicate effectively in a fast, attention-grabbing format.

The key is to be creative, concise, and authentic, making sure each video delivers value to your viewers.

How to turn it into action?

TikTok videos, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts are the perfect platforms to start.

Focus on creating content that aligns with your brand’s message while capturing attention within the first few seconds.

Experiment with different formats, track the performance of your videos and get actionable insights.

Undoutedly, you’ll get the most accurate data from native analytics tools – YouTube Studio, Meta Business Suite, and Tiktok Analytics.

05 Strong brand awareness impacts purchasing decisions

Another great marketing insight I’ve discovered in 2024 is the direct link between brand awareness and consumer purchasing decisions.

A strong, recognizable brand gives consumers a sense of trust and familiarity, which significantly influences their decision to buy.

When people consistently see and hear about your brand across multiple channels, it creates a psychological association that positions your brand top-of-mind when they’re ready to make a purchase.

But brand awareness is more than just about exposure. It’s also about creating memorable and meaningful interactions that build trust over time.

Whether you use social media, paid ads, or customer testimonials, every touchpoint matters to how your brand is perceived.

Let’s take Coca-Cola. There are very few examples of more recognizable brands in the world. But still, Coca-Cola invests billions of dollars in its marketing campaigns and sponsorships.

All that to maintain and strengthen their brand awareness, ensuring it stays visible for consumers in an increasingly competitive market.

Coca-Cola understands the simple truth – consistent exposure and engagement are key to keeping their market dominance.

How to turn it into action?

In the first blink of an eye, strengthening brand awareness seems an infinite process.

Indeed, measuring brand awareness is quite tricky. There’s no single technique to cover the full scope. However, there are some brand awareness metrics that show what works in its favor and what isn’t!

Most importantly, you should find a way to estimate your brand awareness quickly. Brand24’s Presence Score is a great metric for that purpose.

It’s a numeric indicator operating on a scale from 0 to 100. The higher the Presence Score, the more significant your brand awareness.

Next, you should discover which sources drive you the most reach.

Brand24 can help you track the platforms and channels where your brand is most frequently mentioned, giving you insight into what’s working in your favor.

By analyzing your mentions, social media engagement, and customer sentiment, you can identify the most effective channels and refine your strategy to further boost your brand’s visibility.

I strongly recommend you to take a look at Metrics Analysis.

This smart AI-boosted feature automatically analyzes your data to show which sources bring you the most reach and which are the most effective in reaching new audiences.

06 Higher search rankings lead to more visibility

The power of search engine rankings is undeniable.

When your brand or content ranks higher on search engines like Google, it naturally attracts more visibility and organic traffic. The raw numbers are pretty shocking!

According to the FirstPageSage report, the top 3 organic search results receive nearly 70% of all clicks, demonstrating the critical importance of strong SEO (Search Engine Optimization) efforts.

Ranking higher not only increases visibility but also establishes trust and credibility, as users tend to trust top-ranked pages more.

This insight highlights the need to optimize their websites and content for search engines if they want to remain competitive.

How to turn it into action?

Search Engine Optimization is a huge component of digital marketing. People write books about it, so I will focus on the basics.

The most important thing is to create high-quality & SEO-optimized content that provides your audience with valuable information and answers its key questions.

You should also familiarize yourself with some SEO tools, especially Google Search Console and Semrush. They’re utterly helpful in tracking your website performance and upgrading your strategy.

What is the best way to get marketing insights?

If you want to gain amazing marketing insights, you need a university degree in marketing and – preferably – a PhD in statistical analysis… Just kidding!

In fact, using AI-powered analytics tools is the most convenient and highly accurate way to gain marketing insights.

These tools can analyze vast amounts of data in real time, revealing patterns and trends that might not be so obvious.

Here, I want to underline that if you want to get the most accurate marketing data and insights, you should rather focus on these AI tools that have access to your internal data. 

Why?

Because they can provide you with personalized conclusions and observations tailored to your specific business context.

These tools can help you understand your customer behavior, marketing campaigns’ performance, and other metrics unique to your brand better. ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity.ai lack them.

For instance, Brand24 offers an AI feature called AI Insights. As the name suggests, this feature automatically analyzes your data, providing you with actionable marketing insights in real time.

It identifies key patterns, emerging trends, and potential opportunities, helping you optimize your strategy quickly and efficiently.

Moreover, Brand24 offers another valuable AI feature called Brand Assistant.

It works similarly to ChatGPT but is enhanced with your internal project data.

With the right prompts, a Brand Assistant can provide deep insights into your brand’s performance, competitive landscape, customer behavior, and much more.

For example, I asked the Brand Assistant what common topics were driving positive mentions of LEGO.

In under 30 seconds, it highlighted themes such as fan creativity, innovative block designs, and nostalgia from older generations who grew up with LEGO.

Impressive!

Key takeaways

Marketing insights can come from various sources, like media mentions, influencer collaborations, short-form videos, SEO, or brand awareness metrics.

But to uncover their real power, you need to understand what they are trying to tell you.

Because marketing insights are the result of an analysis. They translate raw data into actionable strategies that guide your marketing efforts in the right direction.

Thankfully, you don’t need to do this analysis alone. AI-powered tools can help you dig through petabytes of data, turning complex information into clear conclusions.

It’s like being in an unfamiliar city equipped with a smart GPS rather than having to draw the map from scratch.

The more details your GPS has, the more accurate and efficient your journey becomes. 

Safe (and fruitful!) travel!

Final thoughts:

• Brand mentions act as social proof and – when analyzed properly – can protect you from a potential PR crisis. Therefore, it’s good to pay close attention to them.
• Even the most recognizable companies invest in brand awareness. That’s one of the primary reasons why they are so recognizable.
• Specialized AI tools that access internal data (like Brand24’s AI Insights) provide you with more accurate marketing insights than general AI software.

Enjoy the AI-powered marketing insights! Start Brand24’s free trial now!