The process or set of processes that links the consumers, customers, and end users to the marketer through information — information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process
Marketing research is often partitioned into two sets of categorical pairs, either by target market: 1. Consumer marketing research, and 2. Business-to-business (B2B) marketing research methodological approach: 1. Qualitative marketing research, and 2. Quantitative marketing research
To identify unmet therapeutic needs To predict customer demands for a new medication To identify why the competition is successful To find out the market size and growth To know all category product sales and market shares To assess proper pricing To identify demand seasonality's or trends To prevent crises To identify key targets To evaluate the company’s public image To measure prior successful new product launches Suggest potentially successful advertising &promotion programs
The risk lies in pharmaceuticals are intended for humans. Such risks includes 1. Bias 2. Confusing managerial beliefs with statistical significance, 3. Confusing relationship with causality 4. Expenses 5. Lack of confidentiality 6. Over relying on quantitative data 7. Poor design 8. Time delay 9. Wrong assumptions 10. Wrong data 11. Wrong interpretations 12. Wrong type of research
It is described as research reliability and research validity Research reliability refers whether the marketing research yields the same results in repetitive measurements Research validity refers to whether marketing research yields the result it is supposed to give.
Pharmaceutical marketers need information about: 1. Prescribers 2. Patients 3. retail pharmacies 4. hospital pharmacies 5. Wholesalers 6. Academics 7. Competition 8. the market
After gathering the data needed marketers face enormous amount of info which needs to be stored,retrieved,analyzed, and distributed to all personnel in the organization and this is done using MIS
The process goes in distinct steps 1. Defining the problem 2. Setting research objectives 3. Designing research plan 4. Selecting the optimal sample & it’s size 5. Collecting data 6. Analyzing data 7. Creating a model based on data 8. Evaluating model and deciding optimal marketing strategy