M A R K E T I N G

Customer Insights - Fresh Understanding of customers and the marketplace derived from marketing information that become the basis for creating customer value and relationships.

Advantages of Strong Customer Insights By knowing what customers need and want, companies are able to use such insights to create value for customers and to build meaningful relationships. It also helps companies develop competitive advantages. Competitive Advantage is something your company does better than the competition.

Apple Apple wasn’t the first to make a digital music player, but they were the first to get it right. That is why they capture more than 75% of the mp3 market. How did Apple “get it right”? Sleek simple design Integrated music download center User friendly design Relatively durable Quick innovation

Disadvantages of Customer Insights. However, these insights can be hard to get. These Insights are anything but obvious, and customers can be unsure of what they want and need. Information is useless, if you don’t know how to analyze it. You shouldn’t have too much info. You should always have better info, rather than more info.

Customer Insight Teams Companies are creating “Customer Insights Teams” to better examine the market research. These groups collect this info from a variety of sources to create more value for its customers. Effectively managing marketing info from a wide range of sources is a way to gain good customer insights. Through information technologies (MIS), it is easy for companies to get a great amount of information.

MIS – Marketing Information System People and procedures for assessing information needs, developing the needed information, and helping decision makers to use the information to generate and validate actionable customer and market insights.

Developing the MIS System The marketing information system primarily serves the company’s marketing and other managers. Also provides information to external partners, such as suppliers, resellers, or marketing services agencies. When making the information system, the company must consider the needs of all these users.

Balancing MIS: Needs, Wants and Cost Ask managers what information they really need Managers often omit: information they are not aware exists, information they are unfamiliar with and forget to ask for important information. MIS team must monitor marketing environment so that managers are aware of new and changing available information. The company must decide whether the value of insights gained from additional information is worth the costs of providing it (both value and cost are often hard to assess). Information is worthless by itself; its value comes from its use. In many cases, additional info may exceed the returns from improved customer insights and decision making.

Researching and Storing Marketing Information Marketers can obtain the information they need from many different sources including internal databases, marketing intelligence, and marketing research. Internal Databases- an electronic collection of consumer and market information obtained from data sources within the company network. Internal Sources Include: Marketing Department: The Marketing department has information on customers transaction (what the customer buys), demographics, physiographic (personality, values, attitudes, interests, or lifestyles.) and buying behavior. Customer service department: The Customer Service department has information on customer satisfaction (what the customer likes and doesn’t like) Accounting department: The Accounting department has information on records of sales, cost, cash flow. The sales force: The sale force reports show the competitors activity (what the competition is doing good and bad in)

Advantages of Having an Internal Database The information can help a company gain customer insight and an edge on the competition. Can help the company Identify their best sellers and their worst Help the Company strengthen customer relationships. The information is free and easily accessed by the company.

Disadvantages of Having an Internal Database The information may have been gathered for a different purpose. May be incomplete or wrong for making marketing decisions. The Data may be old. Managing this information can be tedious and requires highly sophisticated equipment and techniques.

Pizza Hut - Internal Database 40 Million U.S households Information derived phone orders, online orders and point-of-sale transaction from over 6,600 restaurants nation wide. From this information, Pizza Hut can see where the most pizza is being sold whether a person orders salads with their pasta or what the most popular topic. After gathering all this information the company can strengthen customer relationships. V.I.P (Very Important Pizza) to retain their customers Join. Get your VIP membership for just $14.99 a year plus tax and you get a free large pizza. Get a FREE coupon for a free large pizza, plus you'll also receive your choice of free Breadsticks or Baked Cinnamon Sticks every month just for being a VIP member. Pizza Hut tracks V.I.P purchases and targets members and send them additional e-mails.

Marketing Intelligence Marketing Intelligence- the systematic collection and analysis of publicly available information about consumers, competitors and developments in the marketplace Goal- to improve strategic decision making by understanding the consumer environment assessing and tracking competitors actions and providing early warnings of opportunities and threats

Marketing Intelligence Techniques Monitoring internet buzz Yahoo has a buzz page on the home page Observing consumers first hand Looking at a companies parking lot, full lots indicate plenty of work and prosperity, half full lots might suggest hard times Apple launches the new iphone, sony has an employee go to the mall and watch people inside the apple store to see how many customers are purchasing the new iphone. Quizzing own employees Competitor intelligence Collected from inside the company – executives, engineers, scientists, purchasing agents, sales force

Marketing Intelligence Concerns Some companies even riffle with each others garbage which is legal one it leaves the companies premises. Websites can provide competitors with strategies, markets, new products, facilities and other happenings. Growing use of marketing intelligence raises number of ethical issues. Growing use of marketing intelligence also causes the need for companies to protect their own information while searching for other companies information.