How Can Agencies Get The Most Out Of Digital Consumer Intelligence?

Without embracing digital consumer intelligence (DCI), many agencies aren’t seeing the full picture.

DCI moves away from relying on just one or two data sources as a basis for insights (whether those are traditional focus groups or sophisticated social listening). Agencies that embrace DCI efforts are finding ways to blend datasets to get a more complete understanding of audiences, and are doing better work because of it.

Brandwatch works with hundreds of agencies, and many of those who work in our dedicated customer success team are agency veterans themselves.

We work with agencies of all sizes and specialisms every day, and we've developed a comprehensive understanding of how digital consumer intelligence can be brought to life within them to produce the best possible results.

In this piece we'll talk through the challenges that come with agency adoption of DCI and how we tackle those barriers. We’ll finish up by giving our tips for agencies looking to make the most of it.

Barriers and Opportunities For Agencies Leveraging DCI

Before we get into the nitty gritty of how agencies can leverage DCI, we need to understand some of the reasons why they don’t. Anyone who has worked in an agency knows that it is a fast-paced world. While this is an exciting environment to work in, it comes with its challenges.

For starters, many agencies tend to have a high rate of staff turnover. When people come and go every few years, it’s critical that the knowledge of how to leverage DCI is shared widely, preventing knowledge gaps when team members depart.

When a new agency joins Brandwatch, we ensure they go through an onboarding process that accounts for everyone who will be using the platform. We like to ensure that all necessary parties are comfortable in creating queries, using tags and categories, and building insightful dashboards.

Meanwhile, time is often of the essence, with briefs sometimes coming in with 24-hour turnaround times. One aspect of Brandwatch’s platform that is so beneficial for agencies is our AI assistant Iris, designed to uncover what’s driving peaks in the data and surface insights that could have otherwise been missed. This tool alone saves analysts loads of time that would have otherwise been spent sifting through large volumes of data.

Brandwatch Alerts can also be set up to ensure no one needs to be in the platform all day to catch opportunities or crises. Instant email notifications can let you know when the conversation changes or turns for a brand – a critically important advantage, especially with so much else on your plate.

Another big part of our suite of DCI solutions that can help save time is the mobile survey tool Qriously, which is uniquely positioned to help agencies ask questions directly to consumers and get answers fast.

One more challenge for agencies to face is the distribution of analysts and insights across the business. Consumer insights are handled in different ways, with different structures that are dependent on the agency. Some have dedicated teams with a complete focus on insights, so the key thing is how well those insights are shared and used more widely. Other agencies have the majority of the team working on insights, design, delivery, and beyond, making it the responsibility of each individual to know how to handle the data and get to those insights, fast.

When you consider the time-poor and high-paced nature of agency environments, you quickly realize that the time and attention needed to accomplish this is not really possible (or even prioritised).

For agencies that have a small number of experienced analysts, Brandwatch gives the flexibility to go deep into the data, and provides innovative ways of distributing insights (Vizia).

For agencies where everyone is regarded as an analyst, regardless of their background, we're making it easier to extract the necessary insights for clients and prospective clients.  Features like Explore are particularly helpful – anyone with a log in can surface insights around organizations, products, or topics in seconds. It’s particularly handy for speedy pitch work.

Okay, we know what we’re up against. What next?

What Can Agencies Do To Better Leverage DCI Software?

It starts with onboarding – building in time at the beginning to really dig into the process with your solution provider is so important. Carving out small chunks of time to spend in the platform with specialists will also reap many benefits, and open doors to solutions that you may not have considered before.

On top of this, agencies should make use of their Customer Success Managers (CSM). At Brandwatch, each agency account is assigned a dedicated CSM who will help:

1. Guide you through the platform.
2. Answer questions.
3. Deliver top level training.
4. Troubleshoot with you.

With a deep understanding of the platform, their knowledge and ability to provide support is unparalleled – they know all too well the pressures of agency life and, more importantly, how to win those pitches.

Lastly, it’s vital to make insights and consumer understanding part of the agency DNA. DCI is not a nice to have – it’s a critical function. Some time and training upfront will make a huge difference to how accessible insights are. This doesn’t mean everyone in the agency needs to become a data expert overnight – features like Explore (mentioned above) ensure that everyone can get quick insights to help build killer pitches and guide great campaigns and strategies.

People + Product = Power

It’s not just the software and tech that brings DCI to life for agencies – it’s people and the partnerships they make.

We work with around 900 agencies globally and are in conversation with them, supporting their work, daily. Our team of dedicated agency CSMs are keenly aware of agency needs and use cases.

It’s this combination of people and product that makes the partnership between Brandwatch and agencies so effective.

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