Understanding customer habits opens a window into better aligning your product or service with your customers’ regular behaviors.

Charles Duhigg‘s latest book, The Power of Habit, provides a fascinating glimpse into the way habits influence human behavior. An excerpt from the book regarding Target’s marketing to pregnant women appeared in the New York Times magazine in early March, and it got many marketers buzzing about how Duhigg’s insights could be applied to marketing. The most passed along anecdote relates to how Target “knew” a teenage girl was pregnant before her father did. (Read more from the New York Times article: How Companies Learn Your Secrets )

We’re already putting the book to use with one of our newest clients. He and his team created a new-to-the-world piece of cardio exercise equipment. According to The Power of Habit, the best time to form a new behavior is when there is a disruption in the old behavior pattern. This insight is helping us to explore targeting runners after they sustain a sports injury.

Find out more about the book in an interview with the author featured on NPR: Habits: How They Form And How To Break Them