Marketing Research

What is Marketing Research? Is the process of systematically gathering, recording, and analyzing data concerning a particular marketing problem Example problems: Who buys our product(s) Why do they buy our product(s) How can we make our products better What are consumers willing to pay How can we reach our consumers What new products do consumers want? Who is our competition?

Who uses marketing research? Marketing Managers Research and development professionals Advertising Business development executives

Traditional marketing research techniques Surveys (print, web-based) Interviews (phone, in person) Data from previous customer transaction or sales records Focus groups Marketing “ethnographics” (in which the researcher becomes part of the consumer’s world for a limited time, closely observing situations and behaviours)

Technology and marketing data Advances in technology are radically changing the way marketer obtain and use information Online surveys provide quick results and data that is ready to analyze Commercial databases can be used online for a fee Information provided by a single firm on household demographics, purchases, television viewing behavior, and responses to promotions is called “single-source data”

Marketing research for product development -leads to understanding the market's needs -identifies gaps Concept Development -translate research into concepts for new/improved products or promotions -test concepts with more research Product Development -all 4 Ps (product, price, promotion and place) specifically address target market's needs, determined through research -minimizes risk since development is based on consumer feedback

Research and the marketing plan Marketing research, if well done, provides a strong basis for a marketing plan Good marketing research reduces risk, since it provides information about the 4Ps relate to both competition and consumers All parts of the marketing plan should be backed up by marketing research

Surveys Types of questions

sampling Collecting data from an entire population is usually costly and impractical. The population is the whole group of people we are trying to research. Therefore researchers collect data from a sample, a small group from the population.

Sampling Methods Stratified Sampling: when you group population and then collect data from a proportional amount of each group Cluster Sampling: when you choose your sample based on a similarity such as living on the same street Convenience Sampling: when you stay in one location and survey those people who come by Systematic Sampling: When you take the number of people you want to collect data from and divided the population by this number, x, and then survey ever xth person Simple Sampling: when you randomly choose the people for your group

Survey Questions There are two main types of survey questions. An open-ended question is when the respondent has to construct their own response to a question. For example: What changes would you make to this vehicle? A forced-choice question is when the respondent is forced to pick from answers provided by the surveyor. There are four types of force-choice questions.

Forced type questions Type 1: Yes/No Questions For Example: Do you like chocolate? Yes/No

Forced Type Questions Type 2: Multiple-Choice Questions For example: How do you take your coffee? Double-double Sugar/sweetner only Milk only Cream only black

Forced Type Questions Type 3: Rating Scale Question For example: On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being horrible and 10 being amazing, how would you rate the service at New Orleans Pizza.

Forced Type Questions Type 3: Level of Agreement For example: Please pick your level of agreement to the following statement: I love chicken noodle soup Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree