Topic 9: Marketing Research Flashcards
Marketing analytics
involves tools and technologies used in making sound marketing decisions that lead to effective outcomes and return on marketing investment
Marketing analytics process
. This process requires data collection and analysis from all channels in the physical and digital arenas, including big data, over a time span.
The real value of marketing research and marketing information lies in
how they are used – in the customer insights they provide
Customer insights groups
Customer insights groups collect customer and market information from a wide variety of sources – ranging from traditional marketing research studies, to mingling with and observing consumers, to monitoring consumer online conversations about the company and its products. Then, they use this information to develop important customer insights from which the company can create more value for its customers.
marketing information system (MIS)
consists of people and procedures dedicated to assessing information needs, developing the needed information and helping decision makers use the information to generate and validate actionable customer and market insights.
A marketing information system (MIS) process
First, it interacts with these information users to assess information needs. Next, it interacts with the marketing environment to develop needed information through internal company databases, marketing intelligence activities and marketing research. Finally, the MIS helps users to analyse and use the information to develop customer insights, make marketing decisions and manage customer relationships.
Marketing research
is the systematic design, collection, analysis and reporting of data relevant to a specific marketing situation facing an organisation
The marketing research process has four steps
(1) defining the problem and research objectives;
(2) developing the research plan;
(3) implementing the research plan; and
(4) interpreting and reporting the findings.
A marketing research project might have one of three types of objectives
exploratory research
descriptive research
causal research
objective of exploratory research
is to gather preliminary information that will help define the problem and to suggest hypotheses
The objective of descriptive research
is to describe things, such as the market potential for a product or the demographics and attitudes of consumers who buy the product.
The objective of causal research
is to test hypotheses about cause-and-effect relationships
Developing the research plan
researchers must determine the exact information needed, develop a plan for gathering it efficiently and present the plan to management. The research plan outlines sources of existing data and spells out the specific research approaches, contact methods, sampling plans and instruments that researchers will use to gather new data.
To meet the manager’s information needs, the research plan can call for gathering secondary data, primary data or both
Secondary data consists of information that already exists somewhere, having been collected for another purpose. Primary data consists of information collected for the specific purpose at hand.
Primary data collection
They need to make sure the data will be relevant, accurate, current and unbiased. designing a plan for primary data collection calls for a number of decisions on research approaches, contact methods, sampling plan and research instruments
Research approaches for gathering primary data include
observation, surveys and experiments.
Contact methods
Information can be collected by mail, telephone, personal interview or online
Sampling plan
is a segment of the population selected for marketing research to represent the population as a whole.
In collecting primary data, marketing researchers have a choice of two main research instruments
the questionnaire and mechanical devices
Mechanical instruments
Nielsen Media Research attaches people meters to television sets, cable boxes and satellite systems in selected homes to record who watches which programs. Retailers use checkout scanners to record shoppers’ purchases
Implementing the research plan
The third step in the marketing research process (see Figure 4.2) is putting the marketing research plan into action. This involves collecting, processing and analysing the information
Interpreting and reporting the findings
As the final step in the marketing research process, the market researcher must now interpret the findings, draw conclusions and report them to management
Two major public policy and ethics issues in marketing research are
intrusions on consumer privacy and the misuse of research findings,
Intrusions on consumer privacy
Increasing consumer privacy concerns have become a major problem for the marketing research industry. Companies face the challenge of unearthing valuable but potentially sensitive consumer data while also maintaining consumer trust. At the same time, consumers wrestle with the trade-offs between personalisation and privacy
Misuse of research findings
Research studies can be powerful persuasion tools; companies often use study results as claims in their advertising and promotion. Today, however, many research studies appear to be little more than vehicles for pitching the sponsor’s products. In fact, in some cases, the research surveys appear to have been designed just to produce the intended effect
