1.1.2 Market Research

Question 1

What is product orientation?

Answer 1

• An approach to marketing that focuses on the characteristics of the product rather than the needs of the customer

Emphasis will be on creating a product first then finding the market

Question 2

What is one problem of a business being too product orientated?

Answer 2

• Overtime your business may move further & further away from what the market is looking for
  Increasing risk of business failure

Question 3

What is market orientation?

Answer 3

• An approach to marketing that focuses on the needs of consumers & uses this information to design products that meet customer needs
• consumers are at centre of marketing decisions

Question 4

Define market research.

Answer 4

• The objective collection & analysis of information about a market
• Market research data can be both quantitative or qualitative

Question 5

What is primary research?

Answer 5

• Research the business conducts for themselves- first hand and specific to the business

Question 6

What primary research methods are there?

Answer 6

• Surveys
• Questionaires
• Interviews
• Test marketing e.g free samples
• Focus groups

Question 7

What are the advantages & disadvantages of primary research?

Answer 7

Advantages:
* Information gathered is focused on needs of the business & will not be avaliable to rivals
* Primary market research is more up-to date & can be used to ask specific questions

Disadvantages:
* Sample size may be too small & unrepresentitive of all customers
* Bias may mean that researchers can guide respondants to answer questions in a particular way

Question 8

What is secondary research?

Answer 8

• Gathering data that already exists

e.g. purchasing market reports from specialist companies

Question 9

What methods of secondary research are there?

Answer 9

• Government sources
• Trade publications
• Market reports
• Internet sources

Question 10

What are the advantages & disadvantages of secondary market research?

Answer 10

Advantages
* Information is already avaliable-quickert to collect & saves time
* Information is often free (e.g. government websites) & is cheaper to collect leading to lower costs compared to PR

Disadvantages
* Info has been collected for other purposes so may lack relevance or may not factually be correct
* Info may be out of date
* Can be expensive to obtain

Question 11

How does the use of ICT support market research?

Answer 11

Company websites
* Allow businesses to collect primary data more cheaply
Databases
* Used to store large amounts of customer information
Social networking
* Gathers information about consumers via online social channels

Question 12

What is market segmentation?

Answer 12

• Process of which a single market is divided into sub markets or ‘segments’

Each segment represents a slightly different set of consumer characteristics

Question 13

What ways are there to segment a market?

Answer 13

• Location
• Lifestyle
• Income
• Demographics

Question 14

What are the benefits of market segmentation?

Answer 14

• Meets customers needs and wants more effectively
• Products can be altered to meet different needs of different groups of consumers & targeted more precisely
• Less expensive & wasteful than marketing products at wide market segments

Question 15

What are the drawbacks of market segmentation?

Answer 15

• Not everyone with a segment will behave in the same way
• May be difficult to identify a segment as consumers can belong to multiple segments at the same time

Question 16

What does market research depend on?

Answer 16

• Depends on the response of customers who participate e.g customers that take the time to fill in the survey