1. 4.1 WHAT IS MARKETING RESEARCH? 4.3 GATHERING PRIMARY DATA March 10, 2010

2. What is Marketing Research?  Systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of information  Used to develop marketing strategy or solve a marketing problem

3. Is This Marketing Research?  Mr. Fortuna is makes his own baseball bats on the side  After creating a bat, he asks a couple of his teammates to try the bat to see if they like it before proceeding with nationwide marketing  Both his teammates say they like the bat and that he should go ahead and sell it  Does this count as research?

4. Is This Marketing Research?  NO!  Information not collected systematically, methodically, or in an organized manner. Asking a few teammates at random is not systematic!  I didn’t do much analysis of their responses  Why did they like the bat? Would their answer be the same in different conditions? Facing a different pitcher?  How many teammates did I ask?  TWO! Very small sample size. Not enough to come to any conclusions.

5. Gathering Primary Data  Primary data is unanalyzed, current information collected by a researcher for a specific purpose  Two types of primary research:  Quantitative  Qualitative

6. Quantitative  Collecting data by surveying representative sample of a target-market population  Marketers use results of sample take predictions about opinions of entire target market  Companies that determine TV ratings use quantitative research

7. Quantitative Examples of quantitative analysis include:  Test Marketing  Internal Information Sources  Surveys  Observation  Focus Group Interviews

8. Test Marketing  Some companies will produce a limited quantity of a product and introduce it to a test market to see how well it will sell  Find areas that have demographic profiles that mirror the country as a whole Eg. Peterborough  Movie sneak previews?  Grocery items?  Kept a secret  Avoid skewing information, avoid competition

9. Internal Information Sources  Sales records  What products are you selling? When? Helps with inventory  Advertising and promotional records  Are coupons being used? Are people seeing your advertisements? Eg. “How did you hear about this product?”  Companies develop databases that provide personal and purchasing records for every customer they serve  Eg. Air Miles, Optimum Card, Costco

10. Surveys  Set of carefully planned questions used to gather data  Written or Oral (phone?)  Close ended questions!  Eg. Yes/No, Agree/Disagree, Rate between 1-10, etc.  People don’t want to spend a lot of time filling these out  The more difficult the questions, people will give up or make up answers

11. Observations  Recording actions of people without interacting or communicating  Hidden camera? One way mirrors?  See how people behave  More accurate than surveys, but more expensive  Less effective in large groups  People are influenced by others, and tough to see one person out of a group

12. Focus Group  Small group of people brought together to discuss a particular product or problem  Combines observation and interview  Moderator guides discussion, help participants generate ideas  Questions must be phrased and presented in a way such that each respondent undersetand what is asked  Observers may watch from special rooms with hidden microphones