1. Marketing Research

2. Good marketing requires much more than just creativity and technical tools. It requires research!
Who needs it?
Who wants it?
Where should it be sold?
What price should be set?
Do people know about the product/service?
Is there competition?
Market research helps marketing managers make decisions.

3. MARKET RESEARCH
is the systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of data to make marketing decisions

4. So….when do we need to do marketing research?

5. We will conduct Marketing Research when a business needs to make a marketing decision….
Ie:
Introduce new product
Change existing product
Location for new store
Where / When / How to advertise

6. There are 4 steps in the “Marketing Research” process….they are:
Determine the problem / set objectives
Collect the information
Tabulate the Data
Analyze the Data
Let’s take a look at each……..

7. Step 1: Determine the Problem / Set Objectives
What exactly are you researching / trying to find out?
Ie:
Is there demand for my product?
Where should it be sold?
What price should I charge?
Do people know about the product?
Did we choose the correct target market & are we reaching them?
Is there competition close by and what are their products and prices?
We need to clearly define what we want to find out before we can move on……

8. Step 2: Collect Information
How are you going to find and gather the required information?
There are a variety of ways….but they can all be classified as either “primary” or “secondary”
Let’s take a look at each…….

9. A. SECONDARY RESEARCH / DATA
Is marketing research information that has been collected and published by others
It involves searching for this type of information in order to be able to later analyze and interpret the data to improve their company’s marketing efforts
Although it is limited because the information is secondhand, it is usually much cheaper to conduct than primary research

10. Sources of Secondary Data:
It is available from a variety of sources
Ie:
Books
Periodicals / Magazines
Internet
Marketing Professionals (ie – industry analysis)
Libraries (databases, indexes, etc)

11. Secondary data can be used by any business to help develop its marketing strategy
Let’s look at an example:

12. Seaman’s Beverages
Located in PEI
Considering expanding into Ontario
They might:
Buy a marketing firm’s beverage industry analysis
They may read magazines focused on the beverage industry (ie – Beverage Digest)
Use the internet for periodicals, articles or other relevant research
Use the library to search their databases and indexes for information

13. B. PRIMARY RESEARCH / DATA
Primary data is unanalyzed, current information collected by a researcher for a specific purpose
There are two main types:
Qualitative
Quantitiative
Let’s take a look at each……

14. Qualitative
Used to measure peoples’ reactions, responses or feelings toward a given subject problem
Researcher is the data gathering instrument
Aims for a complete, detailed, rich description
Researcher may only know roughly in advance what they are looking for…..the responses guide you
its goal is to understand behaviour in a natural setting
Let’s look at a few examples…….

15. Focus Group Interviews
Observation
Collect information by recording the actions of the person being observed without interacting or communicating with the person in order to keep the situation as “real” as possible
Purpose – see how people behave and react rather than have them predict and recall responses
Focus Group Interviews
A small group of people brought together to discuss a particular product or problem
It combines the features of an interview with those of the observation method of collecting data
The focus group participants are carefully selected to represent the larger target market

16. 2. Quantitative Data is in the form of numbers and statistics
Aim is to classify features, count them and construct statistical models in an attempt to explain what is observed
Involves collecting data by surveying a representative sample of a target market population
Researchers use the results of the sample to make predictions about the opinions and behaviours of the entire target market
IE - Opinion polls – Liberals vs PC vs NDP
There are several main types:

17. Test Marketing Surveys
Produce a small amount of product and sell it in a representative test centre (ie – Kitchener)
Based upon the results, the company may make predictions on the larger target market
Surveys
A set of carefully planned questions that are used to gather data.
There are a variety of formats (verbal, written, phone, internet, mail, in-person, etc)

18. Step 3: Tabulate the Information
Once we have collected the data, we must organize it in a manner that we can begin to understand and make sense of the data
Depending on the research, we can classify and count our responses
the actual tallying is contingent upon the type and scope of the research conducted

19. Step 4: Analyze the Information
Once we have tallied the information, we need to look at it and ask ourselves “What does it mean ??”
What “learning” have we gained as a result of our efforts?
by looking for patterns, we can begin to make sense of the data and to use this information to help us reach our research and marketing objectives