CHAPTER 4 Marketing Information and Research

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CHAPTER 4Marketing Information and Research
M A R K E T I N G
Real People, Real Choices
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Chapter Objectives

• Understand the role of the Marketing Information
  System in decision making
• Describe the marketing research process
• Understand the differences among exploratory,
  descriptive, causal research, describe some
  research techniques available to marketers

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Chapter Objectives

• Describe the different types of data collection
  methods types of samples that researchers use
• Understand the growing use of online research

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Knowledge is Power

• A Marketing Information System (MIS) determines
  what information managers need then gathers,
  sorts, analyzes, stores, distributes relevant
  timely marketing information to users
• Marketing Research - process of collecting,
  analyzing, interpreting data about customers,
  competitors, the environment to improve
  decisions

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Marketing Research Data

• Syndicated research reports
• secondary data collected by firms on a regular
  basis
• Sold
• Custom research reports
• primary data collected to provide answers to
  specific questions

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Step 1 Define the Problem

• Specify the research objectives
• Identify the consumer population of interest
• Place the problem in an environmental context

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Step 2 Determine the Design

• Can the information be acquired from existing
  data?
• If so, secondary data sources will be utilized
• If not, primary research will be necessary

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Exploratory Research

• Generally qualitative data
• May take several forms
• Consumer interviews
• Focus groups
• Case studies
• Ethnography
• Projective techniques

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Descriptive Research

• Utilizes a large sample of participants
• Generally quantitative data
• Designs
• Cross-sectional design involves the systematic
  collection of information from one or more
  samples of respondents at one point in time
• Longitudinal design tracks the responses of the
  same sample of respondents over time

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Causal Research

• Attempts to understand cause-and-effect
  relationships
• Factors that might cause a change are independent
  variables while the variables that are affected
  are dependent variables
• Experimental design allows researchers to control
  possible explanations for the effect

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Step 3 Choose the Data Collection Method

• Communication
• Mail questionnaires
• Telephone interviews
• Face-to-face interviews
• Online questionnaires
• Observation
• Personal
• Mechanical

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Mail Questionnaires

• Advantages
• Respondents feel anonymous
• Low cost
• Good for ongoing research

• Disadvantages
• Slow return speed
• Low response rates
• Inflexible questionnaire
• Length of survey is limited

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Telephone Interviews

• Advantages
• Fast
• High flexibility in questioning
• Low cost
• Limited interviewer bias

• Disadvantages
• Decreasing levels of cooperation
• Limited questionnaire length
• Consumers screen calls

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Face-to-Face Interviews

• Advantages
• Flexibility of questioning
• Long questionnaires possible
• Can help explain questions
• Can use visuals

• Disadvantages
• High cost
• Interviewer bias possible
• Time requirements are high

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Online Questionnaires

• Advantages
• Instant data collection
• Flexible question patterns
• Low cost
• No interviewer bias
• Access regardless of geographic location

• Disadvantages
• Unclear who is responding
• No assurance of honesty
• Limited questionnaire length
• Limitations inherent with self-selected samples

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Observation

• Personal observation
• traffic analysis
• recording how products are used
• Unobtrusive measures
• pantry checks
• garbage search
• Mechanical observation
• people meters

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Step 4 Design the Sample

• Probability samples
• each member of population has an equal chance of
  being included in the sample
• allows for inferences to be made about the
  population
• Non-probability samples
• unequal chance of being included in the sample
  (convenience sample)
• limits inferences to the population

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Steps 5 6 Implementation

• Step 5 Collect the data
• May encounter special problems
• Step 6 Analyze and interpret the data
• Enter, clean, code data
• Choose appropriate techniques for analysis
• Interpret analysis by drawing inferences from the
  results

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Step 7 Prepare the Research Report

• Executive summary
• A description of research methods
• Discussion of results
• Limitations of study
• Conclusions recommendations