Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Marketing Research and
Information Systems
- What?
- Marketing
information
system
- A system in which marketing information is
formally gathered, stored, analyzed, and distributed
to managers in accord with their informational
needs on a regular planned basis
- Its design and quality affect
effectiveness of decision-making
- Transforms data from
external environment
into information for
decision-making
- Internal continuous data
- Continuous marketing and financial data which is
transformed for the needs of the marketing managers
- Store and analyse salesforce data to
increase effectiveness of salesforce
Anmerkungen:
- Example:
Sales achieved, number of calls made, size of orders, number of new accounts opened
- Internal ad hoc data
Anmerkungen:
- Example:
Management may look at how sales have reacted to a price increase or a change in advertising copy
- Environmental scanning
- Provides an early warning system for
the potential threats to the company's
products and marketing in the future
- Enables the organization to act to, rather
than react to, opportunities and threats
- Focuses on the long term
- Marketing research
- The gathering of data and information
about markets and consumer reactions
to various marketing mix decisions
- Focuses more on the short term
- Types:
- External continuous
data sources
- Television audience monitoring,
consumer panels where household
purchases are recorded over time,
loyalty cards, e-commerce
- External ad hoc data
- Surveys for specific marketing issues like usage and attitude studies,
advertising and product testing, and corporate image research
- Telephone interviews and
face-to-face attitude surveys
(traditional methods)
- Email surveys and online polls; real-time audio and online video discussions; digital discussion groups in
social media (modern methods)
- Why?
- The Importance of
Marketing Research
- To gather information on what the
consumer actually wants so to
implement the marketing concept
Anmerkungen:
- This information cannot be gathered from the company's internal parts because their perception of what the consumer wants and needs is different than the reality
- How?
- Approaches to Conducting
Marketing Research
- In-house - personally
- Has marketing staff but has low or no marketing budget so
marketers conduct the research themselves
- Disadvantage: responses may be biased through
respondents' awareness of who is asking the questions
- Feasable when sample sizes are
small and staff is trained and skilled
- In-house - using a market research department
- Hiring marketing research executive who has professional specialist skills. He can design, implement and present
marketing research surveys to marketing management
- Using a market research department
and a marketing research agency
- Design and analyse the study in-house
Hire marketing agency for fieldwork
- Using the full services of a
marketing research agency
- The company provides only its
requirements for the marketing research,
everything else is handled by the agency
- How
many?
- Types of Marketing Research
- Ad hoc reseach
- Focuses on a specific marketing problem
and collects data at one point in time
from one sample of respondents
Anmerkungen:
- Examples:
Usage and attitude surveys, product and concept tests, advertising development and evaluation studies, corporate image surveys, and customer satisfaction surveys
- Custom-designed studies
- Based on specific needs of
client. Can be expensive
- Omnibus studies
- A regular survey, usually operated by a marketing research
specialist company, which asks questions of respondents for
several clients on the same questionnaire (face-to-face or
telephone interview questionnaire)
- Questionnaire space is bough by many
clients so they benefit from cost sharing
- Continuous research
- Gathers information
from external sources
on an ongoing basis
- Consumer panels
- Household consumers who provide information on
their purchases over time
- Diaries are most widely used. Nowadays, more digital and online
technology is involved in the data collection process
- Online face-to-face sessions are used for gathering consumers'
top-of-the-mind data (Ideation panel sessions)
- Retail audits
- Tracking the sales of products through retail outlets (e.g.
supermarkets) by laser scanning the barcodes
- Can't get data on brand loyalty and switching but provide accurate
assessment on sales achieved by store
- Television viewership panels
- Measure audience size. The electronic equipment in the panel members'
home registers who is watching television, what they are watching, when
channels are changed, when the viewer leaves the room and more
- Commercial breaks are allocated rating points, which are the
currency by which television advertising is bought and judged
- Marketing databases
- Loyalty cards
- Information is used to
produce personalized
marketing and sales
promotion initiatives
- Customer relationship
management systems
- Data generated at different stages (customer aquisition,
retention and relationship development) needs to be
brought together into an integrated system
- Can create competitive advantage
through gaining consumer insight
- Website analysis
- Example: most frequently accessed item on page,
length of stay, when products are purchased; how well
the site loads and downloads, ranking in search results
of search engines, number of links from other sites
- How?
- Stages in the Marketing
Research Progress?
- !. Research planning
- 2. Exploratory research
- 3. Main data-collection stage
- 4. Data analysis and interpretation
- 5. Report writing and presentation
- Contents of report:
- Title page
- List of contents
- Preface (brief, objectives, scope
and method of research)
- Summary of conclusions
and recommentations
- Previous related research
- Research method
- Research findings
- Conclusions
- Appendices
- With care
- Common mistake is inferring cause and effect when only a
relationship has been established
- Types
- Descriptive research
- Describes consumers' beliefs, attitudes, preferences and behaviour
- Experimental research
- Establish cause and effect by eliminating other explanations of the changes in the dependent variabe
- Research design
- The sampling process
- Selection of a sub-set of the total population in order to interview them
- 1. Define the population, which is
the subject of the research
- 2. Search for sampling frame
- 3. Select the sample
- Specify sampling method
- Random sampling
- Everyone on the list has an
equal chance of selection
- Stratified random sampling
- Population is broken down into groups and
random selection is carried out within the groups
- Ensures that each group is represented in the sample
- Quota sampling
- There is no sampling frame (list) but the %
of groups within the population is known
- The representative groups within the
sample must be in the same ratio
- Not everyone has an equal chance of
selection but is much less expensive
- Determine sample size
- The larger the size,
the more correct the
representation is
- In practice, it is based on the balance between
sampling (statistical) error and cost considerations
- A list/record of the chosen population
from which a sample can be selected
- The survey method
- Face-to-face interviews
- Telephone interviews
- Mail surveys
- Internet surveys
- Questionnaire design
- Quantitative research
methods are most
appropriate. There
are exceptions
- Quantitative research is a
structured study of small or large
samples using a predetermined
list of questions or criteria
- The preliminary exploration of
a research area prior to the
main data-collection stage
- Purpose is to avoid omitting important
things from the research and to avoid
admitting unnecessary things, i.e. get
acquainted with the market and also to
understand the people who are to be
interviewed in the third stage
- Secondary research
- Data that have already been collected by
another researcher for another purpose
- Internal records, reports
and previous own research
- Government and EU statistics
- Market reports
- Market directories
- Newspapers, journals,
magazines
- Internet
- Be careful for
info credibility
- Necessary so primary research doesn't cover
what is already available in secontary sources
- Qualitative research
- Aims to understand consumers' attitudes,
values, behaviours and beliefs (small sample)
- Focus groups
- 6-12 people discussing an aspect
of a company's marketing
- There is a moderator/group
leader who is often a psychologist
- Can be helpful in the later design
of the questionnaire which can
be more respondent-orientated
rather than marketer-orientated
- Cons: interpretation of results is highly subjective, results'
quality depends on moderator's skills, small sample size =>
difficult generalization, research may be biased because of
"research groupies" who return again and again
- Internet can be
an advantage
Anmerkungen:
- online focus groups (less costs, more opportunities for interaction, participants may be more honest; body language ques can be missed);
internet communities, social media sites, chat rooms (more time to think about answers)
- In-depth interviews
- 1-2-hour individual interview
about one topic
- Used when group interaction can
negatively influence the results,
researchers are interested in the
individual answers, and when
organizing a group is not feasible
- Generalization of
results should be
handled with care
- Done with actual and potential buyers
- Consultation with experts
- Not necessarily part of
the target market
- They can provide valuable
background information, and
can be useful for predicting
future trends and
developments
- Observation
- Ethnography
- A form of qualitative research which involves detailed and prolonged
observation of consumers in the situations which inform their
buying behaviour
- Methods: direct observation, interviews, video and audio recordings
- Objectve: to close the gap between what people say they do and what they actualy do
- When product field is
unfamilliar
- Mystery shoppers - trained people
who act like normal customers but
ask specific questions to assess the
quality of the service
- Watching
purchasing
behaviour
- 1.1. Initial contact
- 1.2. Research brief
- 1.3. Research proposal
- Defines what the marketing
research agency promises to do for
its client, and how much it will cost
- Should be in written form to
minimize misunderstandings
- Should include:
- A statement
of objectives
- What will be done
- Unambiguous description of the research
design: survey method, type of sample,
size of sample, how fieldwork will be
controlled
- Timetable
- Costs
- Tips for proposal
assessment
- Beware of
vagueness
- Means the agency
itself does not know
what to do exactly
- Beware of
jargon
- Beware of
what is
missing
Anmerkungen:
- Example:
If it is not mentioned a presentation won't be given, then assume it will not take place. Any doubts, ask the agency
- Explain the marketing
problem, the research
objectives and what the
results will be used for
Anmerkungen:
- Example:
Marketing problem - attract new customers
Research objectives - identify customers (market segments) who might need the product and the characteristics of the product that appeal to them most
- Provide information:
- Background information
(product's history and
competitive situation)
- Sources of information
- The scale of the project (has implications for the research design
and survey costs)
- The timetable
- Given by the client. Should be in written
form to minimize misunderstandings
- Suggestions for
good research buy
- Define terms clearly
- Beware of researchers who bend
research problems so that they can
use their favourite technique
- Can lead to irrelevant
information and
unnecessary expense
- Do not be put off by seemingly naive
researchers who ask what appear to be
simple questions
- Brief two or three agencies
- The company contacts its internal marketing research
department or an external marketing agency. Discuss the
nature of the problem and the client's research needs
- Qualitative
vs
Quantitative
research
- Problems
- Ethical issues in Marketing Research
- Intrusions on privacy
- Misuse of marketing
research findings (biases)
- Information
gathering about
competitors
- Selling under the guise of
marketing research