Unit 2 - Learning aim B

Question 1

What is a target market?

Answer 1

Who the business is appealing to and trying to attract to buy their products/services

Question 2

What does size mean?

Answer 2

How big or small the market is and number of competitors there are that you’re competing against

Question 3

What does structure mean?

Answer 3

Structure of target market relates to demographic which influences the methods a business should use if its to be successful when conducting market research

Question 4

What does trend mean?

Answer 4

Trends of target market are key factors in buying behavior and one that a business must understand

Question 5

How is the target market, size, structure and trend identified and what’s the importance of this?

Answer 5

• through market research so customers can be targeted specifically
• agree a budget so the target market can notice and understand the marketing
• look at size and structure of market as this will impact on what marketing activities can be done
• is the market niche or mass? as this will impact on what marketing is carried out
• once business understand structure of its target market, it can identify where and how to advertise
• business needs to know what the needs and wants of target market are alongside when and where they’re likely to buy the product
• trends are forever changing, therefore its important that a business tracks these changes in trends over time through conducting market research and adapting their product and where its available to buy accordingly

Question 6

What are the importance’s of knowing your competitors?

Answer 6

• understanding the competition is extremely important in business and without knowledge of their activity, a business may lose customers
• by conducting market research, can identify what their competitors are selling, what promotions they currently have and what threats they represent to the business and their customers
• by understanding the competition and their activity, business can conduct more effective marketing to influence buying behavior

Question 7

What is primary research?

Answer 7

New research that a business conducts themselves that no one else will have

Question 7

What is qualitative data?

Answer 7

Conducted on less people but provides more in depth findings, opinions and views is harder to analyze, common methods include focus groups and interviews

Question 8

What are features of primary research?

Answer 8

• personalized to the business, allowing them to tailor questions to research topic/target audience
• original research, created and conducting by a business or on behalf of the business by a third party
• provides more in depth and accurate info about target audience or product for business to use when making future decisions
• costs more and takes longer to get results in comparison to secondary research

Question 9

What is quantitative data?

Answer 9

Higher quantity of data which is often presented in stats format, can be used to inform decision making and predict trends, number based data and is easier to analyze, common methods are surveys and questionnaires

Question 10

What are surveys?

Answer 10

Number of questions that are compiled that are mostly closed questions but are asked to large number of people at once

Question 11

What is an interview?

Answer 11

A range of open and closed questions being asked on a one to one basis

Question 11

Surveys can…?

Answer 11

• provide business with quantitative research findings from their target audience
• can be conducted face-to-face
• conducted through postal, phone or email service or in more recent time, online through 3rd party sites
• many businesses choose external market research companies to create, design and conduct the research based on a brief to maximize effectiveness
• common to offer rewards or incentives for participants to complete survey
• for survey to be effective, number of steps must be followed:
  ¬ identify target audience of survey and what it aims to find out
  ¬ questions should be written with the aims of research and target audience in mind
  ¬ correct platform to conduct survey should be selected after survey designed
  ¬survey conducted then results analyzed

Question 12

Interviews can…?

Answer 12

• conducting an interview can be very effective way of gaining qualitative in depth research from a small number of target audience
• typically conducted in a structured, unstructured or semi-structured format

Question 13

What is a structured interview?

Answer 13

Interviewer asking the interviewee a series of a set of questions which are pre-planned, process really simple and reliable to conduct and analyze responses, restrictive and doesn’t allow researcher to expand on any points in further questions which can limit the effectiveness of findings

Question 14

What is an unstructured interview?

Answer 14

Conducted on informal basis, no pre-planned set of questions, more topic areas and convo flow naturally, expand on key points to ask more questions, can be bias, difficult to compare findings as asked different questions

Question 15

What is a semi-structured interview?

Answer 15

Mix of structured and unstructured methods, some pre-planned questions and ask further questions to expand, collating in-depth and consistent feedback, compared between participants easily

Question 16

What are observations?

Answer 16

Involves watching and recording behavior of customers or a target audience whilst shopping instore/online

Question 17

Observations can be…?

Answer 17

• observing flow of traffic outside of a shop, how many people walk past?, % of people entering store
• observing journey of a customer in store, what routes do they take?, what grabs their attention?
• observing behavior of customers at checkouts, do they appear happy after shopping?, how much was spent?
• can leave questions unanswered, may not understand reasons for behavior
• very effective at gaining insights into how a change in business influences behavior of its customers or target audience

Question 18

Product trails can…?

Answer 18

• use target audience of small selection of paying customers
• be provided to selective group of people for free for them to test and provide feedback
• pay ‘product testers’ as well as providing them with the product for free to gain feedback

Question 19

What is a product trail?

Answer 19

Involves segment of target audience testing a new product or service prior to it being launched to mass market

Question 20

Product trials gain feedback such as?

Answer 20

• what is good about product and what needs improvement?
• is price accurate and competitive?
• is place where product is available to purchase accessible for target market?
• is suggested promotional message and method effective?

Question 21

What are focus groups?

Answer 21

Typically between 4-10 people, exact amount if participants will vary dependant on business and aims of market research

Question 22

Focus groups can…?

Answer 22

• gain range of in-depth qualitative views from a business’ target audience
• effective method for business to collect feedback in early stages of product development or before an upcoming marketing campaign launches
• typically guided by a moderator who may work for business or may be hired from external agency to avoid any bias
• having moderator and research team involved is an advantage as can probe participants for reasoning and justification behind their opinion when requires
• provide in-depth research findings and potential solutions to any issues that arise with product etc..

Question 23

What is secondary research?

Answer 23

Existing/old data that has been collected by someone else and is free/requires payment to access/use it

Question 23

What are features of secondary research?

Answer 23

• not able to be personalised, questions and answers gained may not be suitable for that specific business
• may be outdated/not relevant anymore
• different sample/target market could’ve been used which isn’t the same as the business using the data
• could be biased and unable to be used accurately

Question 24

What is a loyalty card/scheme?

Answer 24

A way of retaining customers and guaranteeing repeat purchases by offering incentives to continue to shop with this business

Question 24

How is data recorded?

Answer 24

• every time a business makes a sale, its typically recorded on their internal database
• this data typically incudes sales figures which will be shown as an overview for a period of time but van also be broken into specific dates, times and products if required
• overtime, this vast array of data grows in quantity which allows the business to perform marketing analytics to help them understand patterns in their customer behaviour, market trends and any other insights which may help with owners and management team to make key strategic decisions

Question 25

How does a loyalty card/scheme work?

Answer 25

• business records data about customers and becomes more effective if customers sign up as a member/join loyalty scheme
• great at influencing customers to return and be loyal to the business
• specific and detailed data provided on every customer as an individual
• can track changes in individual customers and can conduct personalised marketing such as special offers which are relevant to the customer to influence their buying behaviour
• help understand individual customers and how it changes overtime

Question 26

What are external business reports?

Answer 26

Formal written documents from another business that outlines how the business is performing that can be accessed/bought

Question 27

How does a report work/help s business?

Answer 27

• typically have valuable info on developments in the economy, Political agendas and specific segments of the market which can influence a business
  -costs money to obtain either through a subscription or association fees
• business can request data which is most relevant to their specific area of study from commercial market research organisations
• can identify most effective ways to promote their products or services to increase the effectiveness of future campaigns

Question 28

What are statistics?

Answer 28

Any set of data that is collected by the government agency or an official public body

Question 29

What are government stats?

Answer 29

• demographic stats, age and gender split UK wide
• unemployment figures and how they vary across the country
• household info, number of children in household
• crime stats within each area of country

Question 30

How do government stats help?

Answer 30

• free to access but data is typically based on the entire population of the country and can be drilled down to segments if the business requires
• important business doesn’t use government stats on its won when making key business decisions

Question 31

What are trade journals?

Answer 31

Magazines which are specific to an industry or professional

Question 32

How do trade journals work/help a business?

Answer 32

• aim to provide its target audience with news, stats and feature articles about topics of interest within that profession or industry
• typically published on monthly basis and can be very useful secondary source to support business to understand trends and change within their industry

Question 33

What are media sources?

Answer 33

Secondary research and data available to a business across a wide range of media sources e.g. TV, newspapers, radio

Question 34

How do media sources work/help a business?

Answer 34

• businesses have access to kore info
• info can be shared with others
• info can be compared and contrasted

Question 35

What is validity?

Answer 35

Process of assessing how valid info is by tracing it bac to its original source or only using trusted sources

Question 36

What is reliability?

Answer 36

How appropriate the methods that are planned to be used when conducting the research and collecting the findings are

Question 37

What does validity look like?

Answer 37

• important to check validity and reliability of freely available info
• may not be valid/reliable and can be summed up with the commonly used term ‘fake news’
• can get fake research findings which can occur for a number of reasons
• well planned market research containing a mix of research type is crucial, alongside a number of checks and measures to ensure the integrity of research and its effectiveness
• conducting second series of primary research to see if results are consistent with first series

Question 38

What does reliability look like?

Answer 38

Paying consideration to the following:
- are participants aware of how findings will be used?
- have they agreed to be part of the research?
- does research project discriminate?
- are suggested methods used to conduct the research suitable, appropriate and necessary?

Question 39

What is cost?

Answer 39

Final factor to consider when conducting or collating research

Question 40

What is meant by cost?

Answer 40

• even if research doesn’t cost business in monetary terms, it will cost the business in other ways
• includes time taken to plan, conduct and collate research
• however, if business wanted to se an agency to conduct research, costs start from around £5000 which is expensive

Question 41

What is sufficiency?

Answer 41

Business can use selected methods and groups of participants to influence outcomes of research

Question 42

What is meant by sufficiency and focus?

Answer 42

• who paid for research to be conducted, the business or independent body?
• how many people participated?
• how were participants selected and do they give fair representation of target audience?
• why did some participants not recommend product being advertised?

Question 43

What is selection and extraction?

Answer 43

Once market research has been conducted and collated, business or researcher can then select and extract data

Question 44

What is meant by selection and extraction?

Answer 44

• researcher can choose to use all of the research findings or just se select elements when analysing data or promoting its results
• clearer the initial aims and purpose of the research, the easier it is for business to effectively plan, select and extract meaningful data

Question 45

What is meant by how marketing decisions can be made?

Answer 45

• once research project has been conducted, the results/findings can be interpreted and data can be analysed to help make valid marketing decisions
• very important for researcher to consider the rationale of research project prior to interpreting and analysing findings to ensure there’s a clear focus on aims of research project
• allow researcher to organise findings into most important topic areas in relation to rationale to ensure interpretation and analysis is more efficient and effective in answering aims of the rationale
• quantitative information is commonly maths involves, ‘yes’ or ‘no’ shown as %
• calculating mode when asked quantitative questions
• researcher can attempt to put all of this info into perspective through interpretation of what results mean and what actions are recommended as a result
• advisable to keep data ad research findings once purpose and aims of research have been achieved as it can be used to compare and provide baselines for future research projects of similar nature

Question 46

What should happen in the evaluation of research?

Answer 46

This can be achieved in a number of ways:
- identifying any gaps and unanswered aims in the research findings
- performing ‘what if’ scenarios to test the strengths and accuracy pf the research findings
- involving people who weren’t part of the market research process to critique the methods used, research findings and any recommendations as a result