Bloomfire CMO: Outpace Your Competitors With Customer Insights (Full Q&A)

(Bloomfire)

Ever cranked up a treadmill too fast? That’s what it can feel like keeping up with all the changes happening in business right now.

To maintain pace, knowledge management platform Bloomfire’s Chief Marketing Officer Dan Stradtman — previously an executive at Walmart, Amazon and General Electric — wants other business leaders to focus on one critical area: customer insights. Stradtman spoke with b. about how to do so.

b.: Why is it important to invest in customer insights?

Stradtman: I’ve been at companies where there’s a very clear line between the sale I make and the ability to match the product or service to the customer. But that line is very obtuse when it comes to small to medium-sized companies — they often lack that linkage between commercial activity and customer insight.

What I’ve seen at Bloomfire and throughout my career is that this lack of understanding clouds investment decisions. Many companies don’t recognize the value of insight from a sales and revenue standpoint, so they don’t invest at the levels they should. You have to ask, “What should I be focused on? What insights do I need about a customer to innovate?” But it’s a long cycle to get from insight [to] revenue.

The answer, quite simply, of why companies should invest in insights is this: When you understand your customer — their problems and jobs to be done — you can align your business around what’s valuable, create the right proposition for that customer, and address them in a language they understand better than your competition.

Without insights driving execution or a go-to-market strategy, you lower your chances of reaching customers in a way that maximizes value. Ultimately, your customers are going to determine your success. Period, full stop.

b.: What’s the most effective strategy to determine your audience?

Stradtman: In the mid-2000s, Walmart was chasing Target. Their core competency was delivering value to consumers so they can save money and invest in other parts of their lives. But when Walmart analyzed the market, they didn’t just rely on assumptions about their core customer; they were worried because Target was eating their lunch.

Their research revealed that over 60 percent of the retail market was price-sensitive — but in different ways. Some customers used brand as a proxy for quality but still wanted the lowest price. Some lived paycheck to paycheck and needed the absolute lowest price; others made decent money but preferred to save where they could. This insight revealed that Walmart could win with the majority of consumers by doubling down on what they did best: price leadership. That’s where “Save Money. Live Better.” came from.

This wasn’t the tail wagging the dog — Walmart didn’t start with an image of what their customer should look like and force a strategy around it. They used data and insights to drive their approach and doubled down on what delivered the most value.

My belief is you always start with: “What do we think our value proposition is? Who do we think our customer is?” Then, go test it. Figure out if you’re right. Identify where you can intersect with a proprietary insight to deliver value — whether through a service, product or something else — to the customer segments that will respond best.

b.: There’s been a growing lack of trust between consumers — especially younger ones — and big corporate brands. At what point does a customer choose a brand they might not love simply because it offers the lowest price?

Stradtman: Think about how many brands exist today that didn’t before. I’m not talking about really chic brands. If you walk through Target, you’re going to see a bunch of brands that look stylish and high-quality, but they’re probably Target’s own brands. Archer Farms was one of the big ones over the years.

That’s why understanding your customer is so important. It helps you pinpoint the breaking point — how price and quality expectations vary between different customer segments. You then tailor your offerings to minimize cannibalization while ensuring your brands represent the widest range of consumer needs.

You’re not going to find Rolex in Walmart or Target, but you’ll probably find Timex, which is a good brand for a Walmart customer. Then, there are brands that look stylish but don’t carry the same brand equity, hitting lower price points for shoppers on tighter budgets. This way, shoppers who really are struggling are able to get the watch they need without feeling like they have to buy a Timex.

The only way to do this analytically is to understand your customer and apply those insights. Whether it’s Walmart, Target, a CPG, or a B2B, it’s about bringing the right assortment of offerings to reach that customer.

b.: What’s the untapped target demographic you’ve been looking to reach in your time at Bloomfire?

Stradtman: It’s a great question. Bloomfire is essentially a knowledge management platform. There are different ways companies transfer knowledge — some rely on emails, others use folder structures like SharePoint. What makes Bloomfire different is that we’re the first true knowledge management system. Our platform captures knowledge, creates a single source of truth, and then uses that as a megaphone out to an organization.

There are three main use cases. First, there’s cross-company knowledge, which includes all the proprietary information that makes a company unique, everything from insights to internal formulations. Then, there’s customer service support. When you call customer service, you want the right answer — and the way they ensure that is by having the right information in front of them. Bloomfire serves up that knowledge for that CSR in real time. Lastly, there’s insights and research. We act as a repository for all the reports, research and data that’s conducted — and then get it in front of the decision-makers in the company to make decisions based on data.

So then, how do I figure out the target demographic? Well, I have these three use cases. Who’s most likely to use them? What are the things that are unique to our product that are going to resonate with a particular set of customers?

So by doing that, we understand that we work really well with companies that are in regulated industries [like] banking, finance, insurance. Why? Because we’re a really secure product built on AWS’s most secure server, with document-level permissioning, SOC 2 certifications, and a structured onboarding process. It’s not just, “Here’s your software, good luck!” We offer ongoing customer success and implementation support.

That means our marketing, outreach and content all resonate with telling stories that speak to what these industries care about. We refine this understanding by analyzing customer feedback, comparing our market positioning to competitors, and identifying the companies where we’ve had the most long-term success.

We work with companies of all sizes, including consulting firms and smaller organizations that need efficient knowledge transfer. Depending on how a company runs its customer service or internal processes, we can align with their existing tech stack. We’re constantly gathering feedback — both from the market and what we gather directly from customers — so we can refine our messaging, adjust our product road map, and ultimately the value we can deliver to these companies.

Think about this, too. With the rise of generative AI, a key part of having certified knowledge and a single source of truth is ensuring that AI pulls from the right information. For example, we have an AI question tool similar to ChatGPT where users can input a question, and it generates a response. But it’s built solely on the knowledge within our system. We’re not pulling from the “ugly” internet. That’s crucial because you want AI to draw from right, certified information. … We often talk about information “ROT” — Redundant, Outdated, Trivial. We like our acronyms. So if AI is basing responses on information that falls into ROT, I’m most likely creating a very believable response but probably not a very accurate response.

b.: Many people think of AI as this one almighty entity, but the term “AI” can mean so many different things.

Stradtman: One of the things we’ve seen happen over the last year — even across large companies — is if a tool has the word “AI” in it, leadership will impose these security requirements and additional layers of approval, which will ultimately take the decision and budget away from the insights team.

As a result, teams are being pushed to use one-size-fits-all AI solutions that don’t always fit their needs. Insights professionals, especially in small and medium businesses, must develop the right AI terminology and learn to distinguish valuable tools from vaporware. … AI is only as effective as the data it relies on. Unstructured data — videos, PowerPoint [files], Word documents, articles — needs to be organized and controlled. Using AI to transform that data into real insights, synthesis or analysis is the trend that will continue to evolve in 2025 and into 2026.

b.: How can AI benefit employees rather than replace them?

Stradtman: Will AI upend industries? Yes, it will. But it doesn’t have to mean removing people from the industry.

At Bloomfire, we don’t see AI as a replacement for employees; we see it as giving them an exosuit that allows them to be stronger, faster, better. It’s an efficiency game. It’s a way to elevate the average employee to the level of the exceptional one.

We’ve done our own extensive research on this. AI can improve onboarding by reducing training time by 20 percent [to] 30 percent, saving real money by getting employees to proficiency faster. It also cuts down on redundant studies being asked for, lowering the cost to do business. Instead of emailing or calling multiple people to find an answer, employees can quickly access the knowledge they need and apply it to the business decision they’re making.

So, it’s not all doom and gloom. From a business standpoint, we believe it’s more of an empowerment of folks rather than a replacement. The worker of the future will have a different skill set, but that’s been true for the past 50, 60 years as well.

b.: What are some of the advantages companies will see — on a long-term basis — if they start investing in customer insights?

Stradtman: I’ll give you a tongue-in-cheek example before answering your question.

At the start of the 2000s, before Walmart was heavily investing in insights, two of the other largest retailers were Kmart and Sears. And then, Walmart doubled down on insights throughout the decade — and here we are today. In the span of 20 years, [Walmart] is thriving, and [Kmart] no longer exists.

To me, that comes down to losing sight of the people buying your product, service or brand. When that happens, you’re essentially signing away your long-term existence.

For all businesses, success comes from knowing what you do best, understanding its market value, and identifying new opportunities to grow faster than the competition. 

Beyond customer insights, it’s about investing in the right plan, the right people and the right approach. More importantly, it requires actually taking action. That’s where companies often fail. They conduct research, but nothing changes because they don’t commit to acting on the insights.

Companies that prioritize customer insights see great success. And if they skip that step, it ends up being either extraordinarily negative or a much tougher slog than it should have been.

This article first appeared in the b. Newsletter. Subscribe now!