MARKETING RESEARCH IN

PRACTICE

CHAPTER ONE

What is Marketing Research

• The function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information.

What is Marketing Research

• Information is used to

▫ identify and define marketing opportunities and problems

▫ generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions

▫ monitor marketing performance; and

▫ improve understanding of marketing as a process.

Marketing Research Defined

• Marketing research is defined as: the systematic and objective process of generating information for aid in making marketing decisions.

Marketing Research Defined

• This process includes:

▫ specifying what information is required;

▫ designing the method for collecting information;

▫ managing and implementing the collection of data;

▫ analyzing the results; and

▫ communicating the findings and their implications.

Information Reduces Uncertainity

Goal of Marketing Research

• Marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of data about issues relating to marketing products and services.

Goal of Marketing Research

• The goal of marketing research is to identify and assess how changing elements of the marketing mix impacts customer behavior.

Marketing Research Types

Basic Research

Applied Research

Basic Research

• Attempts to expand the limits of knowledge

• Not directly involved in the solution to a pragmatic problem

Basic Research Example

• Do consumers experience cognitive dissonance in low-involvement situations?

Applied Research

• Conducted when a decision must be made about a specific real-life problem

Applied Research Example

• Should McDonalds add Italian pasta dinners to its menu?▫ Marketing research told McDonald’s it should not.

• Should McDonald’s add a “Whopper Stopper” burger to its menu?▫ Research says, yes it should.

Scientific Method

• The analysis and interpretation of empirical evidence (facts from observation or experimentation) to confirm or disprove prior conceptions

Stages in Developing and Implementing a

Marketing Strategy

• Identifying and evaluating opportunities

• Analyzing market segments and selecting target markets

• Planning and implementing a marketing mix

• Analyzing market performance

Identifying and Evaluating

Opportunities

Examples:

• Home cooking is on the decline. Purchase of precooked

home replacement meals is on the rise

• Number of investors trading stock on the Internet is growing

Analyze Market Segments and

Select Target Markets

Examples:• PTV Sports, while monitoring about demographic

trends, will try to learn about the youth of Pakistan

• Morning Show Programs will need to assess the number of females in Pakistan

Plan and Implement a Marketing Mix

• Price: Coca-Cola does a competitive pricing analysis

• Distribution: Q-Mobile investigates dealer service program

• Product: Oreo conducts taste test

• Promotion: How many consumers like “Tum Hi Toh Ho” slogan?

Analyze Marketing Performance

• This year’s market share is compared to last year’s.

• Did brand image change after new advertising?

Performance-Monitoring Research

• Research that regularly provides feedback for evaluation and control

• Indicates things are or are not going as planned

• Research may be required to explain why something “went wrong”

Determining When to Conduct

Marketing Research

• Time Constraints

• Availability of Data

• Nature of the Decision

• Benefits versus Costs

Why Marketing Research is Needed?

• The task of Marketing Research is to provide management with relevant, accurate, reliable, valid, and current information.

• Competitive marketing environment and the ever-increasing costs attributed to poor decision making require that marketing research provide sound information.

• Sound decisions are not based on gut feeling, intuition, or even pure judgment.

Complications of Marketing Research

• Marketing Research decisions are complicated by interactions between the controllable marketing variables of product, pricing, promotion, and distribution; and by uncontrollable environmental factors such as general economic conditions, technology, public policies and laws, political environment, competition, and social and cultural changes.

The Marketing Research Procedure

Defining the problem and

research objectives

Developing the research plan for collecting information

Implementing the research

plan, collecting and analyzing the

data

Interpreting and reporting the findings