Marketing Information Management Marketing Research Set induction: Let me see by a show of hands? How many of you have ever participated in customer research? KEEP YOUR HANDS UP How many of you have ever answered a survey either on the phone or in the mall. How many of have ever received sample products in the mail or with your newspaper? Did they send a coupon with it and did you use the coupon? How many of you have ever filled out a warranty card for something you have purchased? Have ever been asked what zip code you live in when you purchase something. If you have your hand up, Whether you know it or not you have participated or been counted in some sort of marketing research. You have helped some company find out how to sell to other people just like you. That’s what we are going to talk about today. Why do you think research is important? If you will remember back to the last chapter and the role of the consumer they Determine the winning companies by voting with their dollars Determine product demand They help determine the price that they are willing to pay Do you think companies want to know this information before the introduce a new product? How much success would you have on writing a paper on Nuclear Weapons if you didn't look up some information first? Companies are the same way. When they introduce a new product they want to be assured a certain level of success. The only way they can know if the consumer will buy it, or What’s the best color, or how much of this would you buy, or how much are you willing to pay is through research In marketing when ever you are doing anything different your first step is research.

Objectives: Define marketing research Discuss the primary uses of marketing research and why it is important List the four types of marketing research Explain the limitations of marketing research

What is marketing research? The systematic gathering, recording, and analyzing of information about problems related to marketing goods and services.

Primary uses of marketing research Obtain information about potential customer: Preferences Opinions Habits Trends Plans

Why is marketing research important? Marketing research helps companies answer the following questions: What products to produce Who is your primary customer Where should the products be sold How will the products be promoted At what price will the product sell

4 Areas of Marketing Research: Market Research Product Research Advertising Research Sales Research Big companies like Kodak, Proctor and Gamble, Do all of these

1. Market Research Customer Trends Focuses on the customer and the market Customer Trends Buying behavior or how buying decisions are being made Market Trends What the customers are buying What do the customers want? What type of features does the customers like? What colors do they like? Are consumers buying foods with high carbs or Low carbs? Is now the best time to come out with a product that says Buy new Chunky Soup and get twice the energy boosting carbs as other soups? When companies do Market research they are trying to find out how their customers (target market makes decisions) They are looking at your behavior and trying to figure out how they can market their product to you better. When they find a specific behavior they think is important to their marketing efforts they call it a customer insight. A good example of this is Coke and the refrigerator Pack. Coke did a lot of research on when people are thirsty and how they decide what to drink when they go to the refrigerator. What they found was that people were more likely to get a coke if it was already in the fridge cold. Customer insight. So what did Coke do. They got their best minds together so see how they could get people to put more cokes in the fridge. They came up with the Fridge pack ( Show packaging) Clothing - What brands are hot Now

Common Techniques for Market Research Questionnaires Focus Groups Mall Interviews Phone Interviews Mystery Shoppers

2. Product Research Focuses on the product itself Product design Product usage Product acceptance Package design Competitive products Focused on the product itself Companies are constantly evaluating their products and trying to figure out new ways to package and sell what they make. Use Kodak Wallet Packaging example Coke Fridge packs Some popular ways companies conduct product research are to do a test market or to send product samples out to people with coupons. These companies want you to try the product and hopefully like it enough to buy it.

Common Techniques for Product research Test Market Product Samples Mail Newspaper In Store These tests are designed to get the customer to try the product. One you get them to try it you usually want to incent them to actually want to get the customer to purchase it.

3. Advertising Research Two Areas: Media Type Advertisement Itself

Media Type Focuses on: TV Radio Newspaper Magazine Is it reaching your target? Reach Do they remember the message? Recall How many times are they seeing it? Frequency Return on cost

Advertising Design Ad Layout Message Does photography or image catch the consumers attention? Does the headline draw the consumer in to read about the product Does the copy convince the consumer to buy the product? Is the company logo prominently placed?

Testing Advertising Research Consumer panels Usually a group of people who share common characteristics Target audience Ad recall Written Diaries Ad recall How many of you looked in the last issue of the Pawprint? How many of you saw the Balloon closet ad? Do you remember anything specific about the ad?

4. Sales Research The study of sales data The last type of marketing Research is Sales Research How many of you shop at Kroger and use a Kroger plus card. Why does Kroger wan you to use a plus card? They want to record your sales transactions. They want to know what people are buying. How many of you have ever noticed how many little signs are posted in grocery stores promoting baby clubs. Have you ever noticed that these people get special parking spaces out front? Why? Do you think its out of kindness? NOOOO These moms spend a lot of money Have you seen how much diapers cost? Its not just that Moms never walk in and buy one thing They need baby food, shampoo, They don’t have time to cook so they stop by the deli and pick-up a baked chicken and potato salad or sandwiches and potato chips and drinks. Stores want these people in the store because they spend a lot of money.

Primary use Sales Forecasting: determining the potential sales for a product Economic Forecasting: determining the potential economic conditions

Limitations of Marketing Research Cost $$ Time Customer commitment / Validity of data The time lag between research and the application Few companies can actually afford market research. The amount of information a company can gather is limited to the amount of money the company is willing to spend.

Review What is marketing research? Primary uses of marketing research is to obtain what type of information about potential customers? A the beginning of class we spoke about research? Who can tell me how we defined it? The systematic gathering, recording, and analyzing of information about problems related to marketing goods and services. Like everything in marketing we talked about research and the customer or our target market. We said that the primary purpose of marketing research was to find out what about the consumer? Preferences, Opinions, Habits, Trends, Plans of potential customers We also talked about four areas of Marketing research Can you give me one of them (Go around room)

Activity Hand out Handout #1; Types of Marketing Research