Question | Answer |
Marketing Information System | A process that first determines what information marketing managers need, then gathers, sorts, analyzes, stores and distributes information to system users. |
Internal Company Data | Information from within the company to produce reports on the results of sales and marketing activities |
Marketing Intelligence | Method by which marketers get information about everyday happenings in the marketing environment. Ex: Monitoring the internet and using “mystery shoppers” |
Marketing Research | Collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data about customers, competitors, and the business environment to improve marketing effectiveness. Ex: syndicated research, custom research |
Syndicated Research | Research by firms that collect data on a regular basis and sell the reports to multiple firms. |
Custom Research | Research conducted for a single firm to provide specific information its managers need. |
Acquired Databases | External databases that can be used to collect a variety of information from different sources. Ex: non-competing businesses, government databases |
Data mining | Includes sophisticated analysis techniques to take advantage of the massive amount of transaction information now available. Analysts sift through to ID unique patterns in different customer groups. |
What Marketers Can Do with Data Mining | Customer acquisition, customer retention and loyalty, customer abandonment, market basket analysis |
Customer Acquisition | Membership application forms for discounts used to determine which of its current customers respond best to specific offers and sends same offers to non customers who share demographic data |
Customer Retention & Loyalty | IDs and targets big-spending for special offers and inducements other customers won’t receive. Keeping the most profitable customers coming back because keeping good customers is less expensive than constantly finding new ones. |
Customer Abandonment | Firing a customer because keeping their business and serving them costs the firm too much such as those who don’t spend enough or return most of what they buy. |
Market Basket Analysis | Develops promotional strategies based on the records of which customers have bought certain products. HP analyses customers who have recently bought printers and sends special offers for ink cartridges. |
Steps in the Marketing Research Process | Define the research problem, determine the research design, choose the method for collecting primary data, design the sample, collect the data, analyze and interpret the data, prepare the research report |
Define the Research Problem | Step 1. Specifying research objectives, identifying consumer population of interest, placing the problem in an environmental context |
Determine the Research Design | Step 2. Determine whether secondary data are available, determine whether primary data are required and if so, what type: exploratory research, descriptive research, casual research. |
Choose the Method for Collecting Primary Data | Step 3. Survey methods are used to interview respondents. Questionnaires: loosely, moderately, or completely structured. Observational research methods. Online research. |
Design the Sample | Step 4. Probability sampling, Nonprobability sample, |
Probability Sampling | Each member of the population has some known chance of being included, so sample is representative. Ex: simple random, systematic, stratified. |
Nonprobability Sample | Personal judgment used in selecting respondents. Some members of population have no chance of being included, so sample is not representative. Ex: convenience sampling, quota sampling. |
Collect the Data | Step 5. Challenges to gathering data in foreign countries includes differences in sophistication of research operations, infrastructure/transportation challenges, lack of phones and or/low literacy rates, local customs/cultural differences, language |
Analyze and Interpret the Data | Step 6.Data must be analyzed and interpreted to be meaningful. Tabulation or cross-tabulation |
Tabulation | Arranging data in a table or other summary form to get a broad picture of overall responses. |
Cross-tabulation | Examining the data by subgroups to see how results vary between categories. |
Prepare the Research Report | Step 7. Research reports typically contain: exec summary, desc of research method, disc of results including tab/cross-tab, limitations of study, conclusions and recommendations |
Marketing Research Designs | Primary Research: Exploratory, descriptive, casual. Secondary research: internal, external |
Secondary Research | Internal, external |
Primary Research | Exploratory, descriptive, casual |
Exploratory Research | Primary. Generate insights for future, more rigorous studies. Often include in-depth consumer probing. Takes many forms: consumer interviews, focus groups, projective techniques, case studies, ethnography |
Descriptive Research | Probe systematically into the problem, base conclusions on large numbers of observations, typically expresses results in quantitative terms (averages, percentages, other statistics) Ex: cross-sectional design, longitudinal design |
Secondary Data | Data that have been collected for some purpose other than the problem at hand. |
Primary Data | Information collected directly from respondents to specifically address the question at hand. |
Data quality | Garbage in, garbage out. How much faith should marketers place in research? Three key considerations include: validity, reliability, representativeness. |