information Need about: customers; responses to marketing mix; targeting and segmentation;
competitors; and environment; analysis for the purposes of implementation and control.
Marketing information system (MIS): organized way of continually gathering and analyzing
data to get information to help marketing managers make decisions. make info more available
and accessible.
MIS allows one to get more information faster/easier, by making it readily available in an easyto-use format. It continuously gathers data from internal and external sources, and market
research studies. Can provide answers to specific questions.
Intranet: system that links computers within a company. Easily accessible and easy to update.
Marketing managers must help develop a marketing information system, especially in designing
what types of data should be included in the system and able to retrieve information easily when
needed. most companies have much useful information, but it often isn't available or accessible
when the manager needs it.
When getting information for marketing decisions, the marketing manager may gather data from
internal and external sources; make decisions from incomplete information; rely on instincts to
make decisions; should have access to ongoing information about business performance.
Marketing managers can benefit from new developments in computer networks and software
Decision Support System (DSS): a computer program that makes it easy to get and use
information while making decisions. allow managers to see how answers to questions might
change in different situations.
Search engine: a computer program - helps - find information that is needed.
Information makes managers eager for more of it. MIS can be valuable - most companies have
much useful information, but it often isn't available or accessible when the manager needs
it.
Many firms are not there yet, dont have an MIS, or dont know how to use what they have.
New questions require new answers, meaning that an MIS must be continually updated with
information.
Marketing research: Set of procedures to develop and analyze new information to help
marketing managers make decisions. Get facts that arent available in the MIS.
Concerned with gathering and analyzing new information to help executing marketing strategies,
planning marketing strategies, making operational decisions, controlling marketing strategies.
Provides information for use in decision-making, must be a joint effort between researcher and
manager, may be outsourced or people in firm.
MR involves: Analyzing the situation, Solving the problem, Interpreting the data, and Defining
the problem
In order to have good marketing research, its important for marketing manager and marketing
researcher to have a good working relationship.
Good researcher will understand the marketing problem as well as the technical details of
marketing research.
Collaboration between researcher and manager is necessary if the research effort is going to be
successful.
An MIS or DSS uses regularly collected info, marketing research develops unique information to
solve a new problem.
Scientific method: a decision-making approach that is objective and orderly in testing ideas
before accepting them. forces the researcher to follow certain procedures, thereby reducing the
need to rely on intuition. develops hypotheses and then tests them.
Hypotheses: educated guesses about likely causes and effects that can be measured objectively
to help eliminate unnecessary risk taking.
Marketing research process: 5 steps:
Step 1 defining the problem: Key issues determined. Ie: drop in sales. Most important and often
most difficult step. Researcher helps manager determine real problem and types of information
needed to solve problem.
Step 2 analyzing the situation: Informal study of information that is already available.
Step 3 getting problem-specific data: collection of data.
Step 4 interpreting the data: getting meaning from data; raw data to useful information.
Step 5 solving the problem: delivery of recommendations to marketing manager, who
implements recommendations.
Find the right problem.
Situation analysis Informal study, What information do we already have?
Begins by picking the brains of informed people - experts in organization, key middlemen,
suppliers, or knowledgeable people. A marketing manager wants to know why her sales are
down. She talks with several sales reps and finds that a competitor has introduced a successful
new product.
Helps educate a researcher, provides background about unfamiliar problem areas.
May uncover information that leads to an early solution, determines other necessary types of
information. Ie: A marketing analyst looks up data in Advertising Age magazine about
expenditures in the firm's market; A marketing researcher asks a trade association for one of its
reports; A marketing manager searches the computerized database of the Dow Jones interactive
news retrieval system.
Usually uses secondary data, may provide answers, or some background info.
Secondary data: information thats been collected/published for another purpose. Do first. may
not be specific enough to answer the question, should be considered before primary data
collected, often all thats needed, available internally and outside the firm. much
faster available than primary data.
Much secondary data is available. Ie: data from MIS, financial information from accounting
department, reports from sales force, company files.
Information from outside the company - government information, trade association studies, info
in magazines/journal articles.
Search engines can help researchers find information on the Internet.
Government data is inexpensive - in electronic or printed form. is often very helpful for
estimating the size of a market.
Primary data: information specifically collected to solve a current problem. (facilitators).
Examine secondary info before collecting primary data. Secondary data - inexpensive and easy
to acquire. Situation analysis gives a lot, for very little.
Secondary data may solve the research problem, or:
Help establish research priorities; focus research objectives more precisely; or
suggest additional issues to explore.
Outcome of situation analysis is a listing of the research questions are unanswered.
At this point, can determine what else is needed and how to get it.
Research proposal: a plan specifying what information will be obtained and how. helps to keep
a research project on track and on budget. might lead a marketing manager to decide that the
proposed research will cost more than it is worth.
Primary data. Researchers try learning what customers think about a topic/see how they behave
under certain conditions. Ie: market tests
Two main categories:
1. Observing: involves monitoring behaviors.
2. Questioning: asking consumers about their ideas, attitudes, interests, or behaviors.
Qualitative questioning is open-ended. Advantage: Aims for in-depth, detailed responses
not yes or no answers.
Focus group interview: involves interviewing 6 to 10 people in an informal group setting.
Conclusions drawn depend on who watches it. may not be representative of the entire target
market. Objective: to get the group to interact, so many ideas are generated. Disadvantage:
difficult to measure the results objectively
They can summarize the information using a variety of statistics.
Quantitative research seeks structured responses that can be summarized in numbers, ie:
percentages, averages, or other statistics. it is harder to get in-depth answers. usually makes it
easier and faster for respondents to answer the questions (compared to qualitative research), can
use a large, representative sample, data can be collected by mail, e-mail, online, telephone, or
personal interviews, makes it easier for the research analyst to summarize answers.
Scales, ratings
Choice of the right survey depends on research objectives and constraints ie: time and money.
Mail and online surveys are common/convenient. Advantages: ask extensive set of questions;
convenient for respondent; anonymity; more successful than personal interviews for getting
personal information, limited by low response rates, popular - can be convenient and economical
approach. Ie: Marketing researcher wants to get sensitive information about family spending
patterns as part of a survey.
Main disadvantage: low response rate percentage of people contacted who complete the survey.
Telephone surveys are fast and effective. Costly, inconvenience respondents.
Personal interview surveys can be in-depth, explain complex issues. avoid biasing respondents
answers. FLEXIBLE malls or retail stores, more expensive than telephone surveys.
Observing: another way to collect primary data.
Try to see/record behaviors of people, gather data without consumers being influenced by the
process. done by humans or by machine.
Ie: A drugstore installs optical scanners at its checkout counters. This information helps retailers
to manage their inventories and adjust their merchandise selections.
The owner of a shopping center puts a counting device at the entrance to count how many cars
come in. A store manager studies videotapes of consumers shopping in the store.
Consumer panels: groups of consumers who provide information to research firms on a
continual basis. Ie: Jan Meisenheimer has agreed to participate in marketing research in which
she will provide information about her purchases on an ongoing basis.
Test marketing is another way to experiment.
Data analysis and interpretation follow data collection, and it answers the question, What does it
really mean? Quantitative analysis is facilitated by the use of statistical packageseasy-to-use
computer programs that analyze data.
Assessing the quality of research.
Is your sample really representative of the population?
Population: the total group of interest to the researcher or marketing manager.
Sample: a smaller group selected to represent the population.
Should be representative of the population.
Random samples tend to be representative. each member of the population has the same chance
of being included in sample.
Research results are not exact.
Validity: does data measures what it is intended to measure.
Poor interpretation can destroy research.
marketing manager and researcher should work together so problem is understood.
The accuracy of quantitative research is affected by the sampling procedure, the response rate,
the sample size.
What is the value of information? Getting more or better information is not always worth the
cost.