MARKETING RESEARCH

MEHNAAZ SAMANTHA KAMAL

NORTH SOUTH UNIVERSITY
JANUARY, 2016

OBJECTIVES

Assess marketing information needs

Developing marketing information
Marketing research
Analyzing marketing information
Distributing and using marketing information
International marketing research
Public policy and ethics in Marketing Research

CUSTOMER INSIGHTS

Fresh and deeps insights into customer needs and wants

Difficult to obtain:
Not obvious
Customer unsure of their behavior
Not to be derived from more information; marketers need to better use the
information they already have.
Customer Insights teams:
Include representatives from all of firms functional areas
Collect customer and market information from wide sources
Use insights to create value

MARKETING INFORMATION SYSTEMS (MIS)

Consists of personnel who:
Develop needed information
Provides information to companys marketing and other
managers, and to external partners such as suppliers, resellers
and marketing service agencies.
A good MIS: Balance the information users need and whats
feasible to offer.

Developing Marketing Information

Marketers obtain information from:

Internal data:
Electronic collections of consumer and market information
obtained from data sources within the company network

Competitive Marketing intelligence:

Systematic collection and analysis of publicly available information
about consumers, competitors and developments in marketplace

Market research:
Systematic design, collection, analysis and reporting of data relevant
to specific marketing situating facing an organization

MARKETING RESEARCH
Defining the Problem and research Objectives:
Exploratory research: Gather preliminary information that
will help define the problem and suggest hypothesis
Descriptive research: Describe aspects, such as the market
potential for a product or demographics and customer
attitudes
Casual research: test hypotheses about cause and effect
relationship

DEVELOPING THE RESEARCH PLAN

Outline sources of existing data
Spell out specific research approaches, contact methods,
sampling plans and instruments to gather data
2 types of data collection:
Secondary data: consists of information that already exist
somewhere, having been collected for another purpose
Primary data: consists of information gathered for the
special research plan

Secondary data:
Can be bought from outside supplies, commercial online
databases and Internal search engines

Primary data

Research approaches:
Experimental research: best for gathering causal
information. it tries to explain cause and effect relationships.
Eg: McDonalds can conduct experiments to test effects on
sales of its new sandwiches, using two different prices it
might charge.
Observational research: involves gathering primary data
by observing relevant people, actions and situations.
Eg: evaluate possible new store locations by checking traffic
patterns.

 Survey research: Best for descriptive informationknowledge, attitudes, preferences, and buying behavior
Most widely used method
Flexible
People can be unable or unwilling to answer
Gives misleading or pleasing answers
Privacy concerns
Ethnographic research: Involves sending trained
observers to watch and interact with consumers in their
natural environment.
Eg: Sending researchers to slums of Dhaka to seek
insights of very low income consumers.

Contact methods:
Mail
telephone interviews and
Individual interviews
Group interviewing (eg: focus groups)

Focus groups: Conducted on 6 to 10 people with a

trained moderator
Challenges:
Expensive
Difficult to generalize from small group
Consumers aren't always open and modest

Online marketing research

SAMPLING PLAN
Sample: A segment of population selected for marketing
research to represent the population as a whole
Important questions to consider for sampling:
Who should be surveyed?
How many people should be surveyed?
How should the people be chosen?

Research instruments
Questionnaires:
- Most common
- Administered in person, by phone, or online
- Flexible
- Be careful about the working and ordering of
questions

Mechanical instruments:
Used by retailers to record
shoppers purchase
Can be attached to tv
in selected homes, to
record who watches
which programs

Measuring brain
activity to learn how
consumers feel and
respond

IMPLEMENTING THE RESEARCH PLAN

INTERPRETING AND REPORTING THE FINDINGS

- Researcher must present important findings and
insights that are useful in major decisions
- Findings can be interpreted n different ways
- Discussions between researchers and managers can
bring them to best interpretations.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM)

- CRM: managing detailed information about individual customers and
carefully managing customer touch points to maximize customer loyalty.
- Consists of sophisticated software and analytical tools that:
Integrate customer information from all sources
Analyze it in depth
Apply the results to build stronger customer relationships

Customer relationship management touch points:

DISTRIBUTING INFORMATION:
Entering information into databases and making it
available in a timely usable manner
Intranet provides information to employees and
other stakeholders
Extranet provides information to key customers and
suppliers

MARKETING RESEARCH IN SMALL BUSINESSES

AND NON PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS
Such organizations can obtain good marketing insight through
observations and informal surveys using small convenience sample.
But they must recognize the biases introduced by their smaller
samples and less skilled researchers.
Such business can research competitor and customer website, and
use internet search engines.
Many association, local media and government agencies provide
special help to small org

INTERNATIONAL MARKETING RESEARCH

Diverse markets with many different counties that vary greatly in
their levels of economic development, cultures, customers, and
buying patterns.
Difficulty in gathering secondary data.
Difficulty with primary data:
Not easy to reach respondents.
Transportation and infrastructure system
Cultural differences
Language problems
Different customer attitudes

PUBLIC POLICY AND ETHICS IN MARKETING RESEARCH

Intrusion on consumer policy:

Consumers can resent or even mistrust research.
Dont like being interrupted.
Worry that marketers are building huge databases full of personal information
Fear that researchers can use sophisticated techniques to explore their
deepest feelings, peek over their shoulders, and use the knowledge to
manipulate their buying.

Development of codes and standards of conduct

Outlines researchers responsibilities to respondents, including confidentiality,
privacy and avoidance of harassment.