Unit IV

MARKETING RESEARCH

Types Process Tools and Techniques

Marketing research

The Oxford Encyclopedia English Dictionary gives the meaning of research as

“the systematic investigation into the study of materials, sources etc., in order to
establish facts and reach new conclusion.

Marketing research process:

The research process consists of a series of activities. The activities in the

research process are closely related and they overlap continuously rather than
following the sequence presented.

Raw data does not make any sense and only when it is analysed, we get
information, which is meaningful. Before anlaysis, the raw data is processed to
ensure that we have all the relevant data. Processing implies four activities:

Editing Coding Classification and Tabulation

The process of examining the raw data to detect errors and omissions and to
correct these when possible is called Editing. Coding is the process of assigning
numerals or other symbols to the data in order to put them in limited number of
categories.

Putting larger volume of data into homogenous groups is termed as

classification. The tabulation deals with the process of summarizing raw data and
displaying the same in correct form for further analysis.

Marketing research Analysis:

There are many analytical tools used in marketing research. SPSS is the
software which is used effectively for analysing the tabulated data. Apart from
SPSS, there are few other packages like SSP used for the analysis. Multivariate
techniques are those that involve more than one variables at the same time. The
various approaches are:

Multiple Regression Analysis which examines the relationship between at least

two interval scaled independent variables and one interval scaled dependent
variable. It differs from regression analysis, which is bivariate (involving one
dependent and one independent variable).

Multivariate Correlation which is an extension of simple correlation analysis, to

the situations involving two or more independent variables and their degrees of
assocation with the independent variable. There are two coefficients used: The
coefficient of multiple correlation, R which indicates the strength of relationship
between two or more independent variables and the dependent variable. Also the
coefficient of multiple determination, R2.

Marketing research methods:

Demand measurement research:

The major concepts in demand measurement are:

Market demand.

Company demand

Market demand for a product is the total volume that would be bought by a
defined customer group, in a defined geographical area, in a defined period of
time, in a defined marketing environment, under a defined marketing programme.
Company demand is the company’s estimated share of market demand at
alternative levels of company marketing effort.

New product launch research:

New product launch is the most crucial aspect in the new product management.
The new product launch can be on a national basis or a rolling launch as seen in
the earlier chapter. The success and failure of a product heavily depends on the
new product launch. It is a known fact that the launch strategy of Microsoft, in the
case of Windows 95 using Michael Jackson contributed heavily to the success of
the product.

A marketer to ensure product success may use the following guidelines:

1. Distinguish your product from the competition in a consumer relevant way.

2. Capitalise on key corporate competencies and brand strength.
3. Develop and market products to people’s needs and habits.
4. Market to long-term trends, not fads.
5. Don’t ignore research, but don’t be paralysed by it.
6. Make sure your timing is right.
7. Be a marketing leader, not a distant follower.
8. Offer a real value to customers.
9. Determine a products short-term and long-term sales potential.
10. Gain legitimacy and momentum for the brand.
11. Give the trade as good a deal as the customer.
12. Clearly define, understand, and talk to your target.
13. Develop and communicate a distinctive and appealing brand character…
and stick to it.
14. Spend competitively and efficiently, behind a relevant proposition.
15. Make sure the consumer is satisfied… and stays that way.

Advertising research:

Every year companies spend huge sums of money creating advertisements and
buying media time and space. They hope that these marketing communication
efforts and expenditures would benefit their businesses by influencing consumer
choices.

Advertising Strategy Research

Advertising strategy is developed by carefully blending the elements of the
creative mix. The mix elements are :

Product and its positioning

Target audience

Communications media

The message-element

Creative Concept Research

Creative specialists prepare several tentative advertising concepts in the

form of rough copy platform or the storyboard. Researchers conduct focus group
discussions in the agency’s developmental lab which combines intensive
qualitative interviews with quantitative techniques. A discussion leader moderates
the conversation and each group views the rough (copy platform, Storyboard or
animatic).

Pre-testing and Post-testing

Advertisers use pre-tests and post-tests to ensure that the advertising money is
used wisely to achieve predetermined objectives. Testing can help in judging the
effectiveness of advertising strategy or medium. Pre-testing is used to increase
the likelihood of creating the most effective advertising messages.

Post testing (also called advertisement tracking) is important to evaluate the

success or otherwise of an individual advertisement or the whole campaign after
it has run.

Customer satisfaction research:

Market researchers, ad agencies and many others have been trying to figure out
what consumers want since the opening of the first store.

Distribution research:
The study has been now divided into supply chain research and also on logistics
research. In the case of supply chain, following are included for research:

1. - Alignment of markets with supply.

2. - Linking Demand Chain and Firm performance.
3. - Outsourcing.
4. - Reverse Logistics.
5. - RFID.
6. - Supply Chain Agility.
7. - Supply Chain Collaboration.
8. - Supply Chain Costing.
9. - Supply Chain Information Systems.
10. - Supply Chain Risk & Resilience.
11. - Supply Chain Strategy.
12. - Service Supply Chains.
13. - Stock loss.

Logistics play a crucial role in business as it is involved in the entire supply chain
starting from purchase of materials to supply of finished products.

Process Mapping: It is a pencil and paper tool that helps to visualise and
understand the flow of material and information as a product makes its way
through the supply chain. Some of the main benefits of this tool are, that it helps
to identify waste in the process, supporting the analysis of the linkages between
information and material flows and serving as a basis for the implementation
plan.

Supply Chain Collaboration Index: The purpose of this tool is to capture

quantitative and qualitative data to reveal the dynamics of long-term collaborative
business relationships. The method has been proven in a large number of multi-
million pound, bilateral relationships in the public and private sectors, and
subjected to rigorous testing.

Competitor analysis Research:

There are number of possibilities of conducting competitive analysis. Competitive
Intelligence is the legal and ethical process of collecting and analysing
information, converting it into intelligence and then using it to determine the
capabilities, vulnerabilities, and intentions of the competition. There are three
levels at which the research is undertaken:

1. Feature level
2. Solution level
3. Hidden competition

Preparation of marketing research report:

The results of marketing research must be effectively communicated to

management. Presenting the results of a marketing research study to
management generally involves a formal written report as well as an oral
presentation. The report and presentation are extremely important. Firstly,
because the results of marketing research are often intangible , the written report
is usually the only documentation of the project.

Customer Relationship Management

INTRODUCTION:

Developing close, cooperative relationship with customers is more important

in the current era of intense competition and demanding customers, than it
has ever been before. Customer relationship management (CRM) has
attracted the expanded attention of scholars and practitioners.

Relationship marketing:

Traditionally, marketing has been from the perspective of managing relationship

with customer groups. However, a much broader viewpoint is appropriate in
relationship marketing. Generally, this can be done through two ways, viz., by
considering a wider range of markets; and by expanding the marketing mix.
Widening the markets

In traditional form of marketing, managing relationships with customer groups

and new customers was given more importance than the existing ones. Later
on companies realized the long-term advantage they would get by
maintaining and enhancing the relationship with their existing customers. For
providing quality products and best services, it is necessary to consider a
wider range of markets.

a) Supplier market

b) Recruitment market

c) Referral markets

d) Influence markets

e) Internal markets

Loyalty programmes:

Loyalty programmes normally manifest themselves as loyalty cards, special

mailers and the like. The underlying reason in all the effort is to be in constant
touch with the customer, thereby ensuring top-of-the-mind recall and also moving
the brand to the next level of relationship with the customer, beyond just the
product attributes and benefits. Until today, loyalty programmes have been the
forte of companies dealing with high value premium products and services such
as hotels, airlines and credit cards.

Types of CRM:

CRM addresses elements like lifetime value, quality service, systems, customer
data, and leadership attitudes. There are three types of CRM. They are:

Collaborative CRM consists of technologies to ensure enterprise/customer

interaction across all contact channels such as in-person, phone, electronic and
wireless. The collaborative infrastructure provides access to people, processes
and data across the entire spider chart.

Operational CRM provides the biggest surprise, with its inclusion of back-office
and legacy applications under operational CRM. Customer relationship
management and front office have always been considered synonymous, with
the two terms being used interchangeably. They are all elements of an overall
customer-facing system.

Analytical CRM is what delivers the profitability payoff. Analytics takes the mass
of relationship data throughout the relational enterprise and puts it into a form
that can be used to add proactive value. This means that operational results,
product information, and marketing data must be integrated using data
warehousing and reporting tools.