Marketing Research

1
Marketing Research

• Chapter 4
• June 7, 2001

2
Marketing Information System

• Not just a computer system, though one may be
  involved
• Involves all the people, technology and processes
  involved in gathering the information necessary
  to a successful marketing function and getting it
  to the right people in the organization in the
  right form at the right time to make decisions
• data--gt information --gt knowledge

3
Information Mgmt. Process

• 1. Assessing information Needs
• 2. Gathering Information
• 3. Analysis of Information
• 4. Distributing Information to decision-makers

4
Assessing Info Needs

• Involves determining what information decision
  makers want, what they actually need, and what it
  is feasible to provide them.
• Managers may not know exactly what information
  they need. Need to analyze the types of
  decisions they make
• Need to look for new forms of information that
  managers would not think to ask for
• Information needs to be useful - not overload
• Need to consider costs of obtaining info.

5
Gathering Information

• Internal data - existing company data that can be
  used in marketing decision-making
• Records, transactions, financial reports,
  customer complaints, service calls, sales and
  cost data
• Marketing Intelligence - collection and analysis
  of publicly available info on the marketing
  environment, especially competitors
• employees, suppliers, distributors need to be
  intelligence gatherers (boundary spanners)
• Buying competitors products, reverse
  engineering, corporate espionage
• Looking at media, internet, annual reports

6
Gathering Information (2)

• Marketing Research - creating new information by
  conducting research in the companys consumer
  market
• May involve reactions to current product
  offerings or potential future product offerings -
  success insurance
• Involves answering specific questions about the
  market
• What type of products are preferred
• Who does the purchasing
• What messages are effective motivators?

7
Information Analysis

• Once received, data and information are analyzed
  by researchers to help decision-makers
• Often involves the use of statistical techniques
  to determine patterns and trends in the data
• Once information is analyzed it is transformed
  into knowledge that can help the organization
  predict outcomes and make important decisions
  about S,T,P, and the 4Ps

8
Distributing Information

• Information technology needs to be employed in
  order to make up-to-the minute information
  available to marketers and other organizational
  managers, so that timely decisions can be made.
• Since different users have different needs,
  interfaces and reports have to be tailored to the
  needs of individuals
• e.g. OLAP can give detailed sales reports

9
Marketing Research Process

• 1. Defining the Problem and Research Objectives
• 2. Developing a Research Plan
• 3. Conducting Research
• 4. Analysis of Results
• 5. Presentation of Findings

10
Defining Research Objectives

• Type of research instruments and analysis will
  depend on the problem being solved and the goals
  of research.
• What is the purpose
• Exploratory research - to help identify the
  issues and generate hypotheses to be tested.
  Answers a general question e.g.-what is the
  process through which consumers become aware of
  new brands, what types of people buy this product
• Descriptive Research - seeks to test hypotheses
  about the way things are - 5Ws and how -
  quantitative
• Causal Research - seeks to predict the outcome of
  a scenario - e.g. what is the likelihood of a
  purchase, and cause and effect relationships

11
Developing a Research Plan

• Determine information needs - what specific
  questions will be addressed in the research
  (research questions)
• If the research is descriptive or causal, what
  particular hypotheses will be tested?
• What secondary data sources are available?
• Internally
• commercial data (from research, polling firms)
• publications (journals, magazines) and Internet
• Statistics Canada and Government research

12
Developing a Research Plan (2)

• What sample and sampling technique is
  appropriate?
• Size of sample based on confidence interval
• Sampling techniques
• Random
• Stratified Random
• Convenience
• Snowball/Referral
• Judgment (selected by researcher on the basis of
  his/her judgement about who is good source

13
Developing a Research Plan (3)

• Determine the research technique based on
  objectives and sample size
• Exploratory
• Interviews (face-to-face or telephone)
• Focus Groups (small group interview)
• Ethnography (direct observation)
• Case Studies
• Descriptive
• Surveys (paper, electronic, telephone, mail,
  face-to-face)
• Interviews and Coding
• Act-Frequency (observation and coding)
• Causal
• Controlled Experiment (Lab or Field)

14
Implementation and Interpretation and Reporting

• Implementation - only after careful planning that
  is justified theoretically and ethically and
  pre-testing of techniques
• Collection, processing, analysis of data to
  generate findings
• Interpretation must be done by qualified
  researchers who understand the limits of the
  research model and analysis techniques. Must not
  draw faulty conclusions

15
Uses of Technology

• Single-Source data - link buyers actual purchases
  to their exposure to ads, their demographics and
  psychographics - links all these together to find
  patterns and trends. Digital TV and
  cash-scanners are employed
• Data mining - technique to find patterns in large
  data sets (warehouses) that can be used to
  generate and test hypotheses

16
Research Issues

• Reliability and Validity of Measures
• Representativeness of Samples
• Caution against unwarranted inferences -
  especially with focus groups
• Data mining needs to be verified with descriptive
  or causal research
• Research is costly and mistakes can be critical -
  therefore - need to pretest