Chapter 3 - Collecting info and forecasting demand Flashcards
Components of a Modern Marketing Information System (MIS)
- Internal company records
- Marketing intelligence activities
- Marketing research
Modern Marketing Information System
Consists of people, equipment, and procedures to gather, sort, analyze, evaluate, and distribute needed, timely, and accurate information to marketing decision makers.
Internal company records
- Order to payment cycle (Dealers, sales representatives, customers send orders to the firm)
- Sales Information Systems
- Databases, Data Warehousing, Data Mining
How do you improve marketing intelligence?
- Train & motivate the sales force to spot and report new developments
- Motivate distributors, retailers, & other intermediaries to pass along important intelligence
- Hire external experts to collect intelligence
- Network internally and externally
- Set up a customer advisory panel
- Take advantage of government-related data sources
- Purchase information from outside research vendors
- Collect marketing intelligence on Internet
Marketing research
Identify needs and trends
- Fad, Trend, Megatrend
6 Major forces in the broad environment:
• Demographic • Economic
• Socio-cultural • Natural
• Technological • Political-legal
Fad
Unpredictable short-lived and w/o social, economic, and political significance
Trend
Reveal the shape of the future
& can provide strategic direction
- More predictable & durable than a fad
Megatrend
“large, social, economic, political, and technological change that is slow to form, and once in places influences us for some time”
- B/w 7 to 10 years or longer
Demographic environment
- Worldwide/US population growth
- Population age mix
- Ethnic and other markets
- Educational groups
- Household patterns
Economic environment
• Recession, inflation, unemployment
• Consumer psychology and Income
- Income distribution
- Very low income
- Mostly low income
- Very low, very high
- Low-medium-highincome
- Mostly medium incomeSociocultural environment
- Core cultural values (ex. working, getting married, honesty)
- Views of ourselves, society, others, nature, organizations
- Roles of men/women rights and purchase beviour
- Preservation of environment
Natural environment
Examples - • Hybrid car • Low-flow toilets • Organic food, Green office building • Wind farms • Sun Oven • Corporate Environmentalism • Green Marketing
Technological environment
Accelerating pace of change
• Time between idea and implementation is shrinking
- Unlimited opportunities for innovation
- Varying R&D budgets
- Increased regulation of technological change
Politcal-legal environment
Laws
• Sherman, Clayton
• Patent, Copy Right
• Mandatory Recycling
Government agencies
• FDA,FTC
Consumerist Movement • Consumer Product Safety • Nutritional Labeling • Unit Price • Consumer Bill of Rights: right to be safe, be heard, be informed, to choose
Recession
A significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months
- Loss of jobs
- Decline in real income
- Slump in consumer spending
- Industrial productions and manufacturing slow down
- Businesses cut their costs in many ways
Inflation
Sustained increase in the general level of prices for goods and services in a county, and is measured as an annual percentage change
- Prices rise, and value of money falls (you can buy less goods w/ a dollar in inflation)
Unemployment
The percentage of unemployed workers in the total labor force
- Causes ripple effect on the economy
- State will likely raise taxes to compensate for the lost tax revenues. Therefore, everyone will experience a loss in disposable income
Potential market
Set of consumers w/ sufficient level of interest in a market offer. BUT their interest isn’t enough to define a market unless they have enough income and access to the product.
(Just Interested)
Qualified available market
Set of consumers who have interest, income, access, and qualifications for the market offer.
(Interested + income + access + qualification)
Penetrated market
Set of consumers who are buying the company’s products
(Customers who are buying)
Ways of estimating future demand
• Survey of buyers’ intentions
Purchase probabilities using scale 0 to 1
Expectations about the economy
Forecasting: the art of anticipating what buyers are likely to do under a given set of conditions
- Composite of sales force opinions - Company asking sales representatives their future sales
- Expert opinion - obtaining forecasts from experts, like dealers, distributors, suppliers, marketing consultants, & trade associates, & economic-forecasting firms
- Past-sales analysis - Developing forecasts on the basis of past sales
- Market-test method - When buyers don’t plan their purchases carefully or experts unavailable/unreliable, perform direct market tests to help forecast new product sales
