Redefining Marketing Research

Redefining Marketing Research

• The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines marketing research as a function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information.
• This information is used to identify market opportunities/problems, generate and evaluate marketing performance, and to improve the understanding of marketing as a process.

Definition of Marketing Research

• Marketing research involves the systematic and objective: identification, collection, analysis, dissemination, and use of information.
• This is done to improve decision-making related to the identification of issues, and to find solutions for problems in marketing.
• Activities include specifying necessary information, managing data collection, analyzing results, communicating findings, and helping managers to use information for decisions.

Classification of Marketing Research

• Research can be for problem identification, addressing issues not apparent but exist or are likely to arise Examples include market potential, market share, image, market characteristics, sales analysis, forecasting, and trends.
• Research also is for problem-solving, helping find explicit marketing solutions. Examples include: segmentation, product, pricing, promotion, and distribution research.

Marketing Research Process

• The steps are: problem definition, developing an approach to the problem, research design formulation, fieldwork or data collection, data preparation and analysis, and report preparation and presentation.

The Role of Marketing Research

• Marketing research assesses information needs and provides information for making marketing desicions.
• Elements include the controllable marketing variables, customer groups, and uncontrollable environmental factors

Marketing Research Suppliers and Services

• Research suppliers can be internal or external
• Internal suppliers work directly within the company.
• External suppliers provide services from outside the organization.
• External suppliers are categorized as "full service" doing end-to-end research or "limited service" offering specialized support.
• Full-service suppliers offer customized, syndicated, and internet/social media services
• Limited-service suppliers provide field, qualitative, technical, and other services

Criteria for Selecting a Research Supplier

• Key considerations include the supplier’s reputation, ability to meet deadlines, adherence to ethical standards, flexibility, and the quality of their research projects.
• The level and relevance of the supplier's experience, including both technical and non-technical expertise, along with their ability to communicate effectively with the client are also considered.
• Bids should be evaluated on their basis of quality and price

Careers in Marketing Research

• Career opportunities are available with marketing research firms and in businesses.
• Options include advertising agencies, non-business firms/agencies, plus in-house marketing research departments.
• Job roles range from VP of marketing research to analyst positions.

Preparation for Marketing Research Career

• Take marketing courses, especially in statistics and quantitative methods
• Internet and computer skills including programming are an asset
• Courses in psychology and consumer behavior are valuable
• Build effective written and verbal communication skills
• Think creatively and use common sense.

Management Information Systems vs. Decision Support Systems

• MIS handles structured problems using standard reports and has a rigid structure, which clarifies data.
• DSS is for unstructured problems, uses models, offers user-friendly interaction, and adaptablity for improved decision-making using "what if" analysis.

International Marketing Research

• The United States accounts for about 40% of worldwide marketing research expenditures.
• International marketing research must be sensitive to cultural differences
• Environmental factors influence how marketing research should be performed, including marketing, government, legal, economic, structural, informational, technological, and sociocultural factors.

Marketing Research & Social Media

• Social media shares characteristics relevant to marketing research because of its user generated content.
• Users can rate, rank, comment on, review, and respond to media.
• Online communities form through one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many communication modes.
• Social communities create opportunities for understanding, explaining, influencing, and predicting consumer behaviors in the marketplace.
• Limitations include lower objectivity standards versus journalists and potential for being non-representative including self selection and personal advocacy.
• Insights from social media can offer useful inform marketing decisions but also should be utilized as an additional domain in which to conduct marketing research to supplement and complement, and shouldn't replace traditional research methods.

Mobile Marketing Research

• Involves conducting research, like surveys, with potential respondents on their mobile devices
• Expected to continue growing as mobile user base is huge
• Mobile internet usage has exceeded desktop use
• MMR can be conducted via international survey platforms or through mobile services of access panels
• Advantages include; potential to reach a broader audience, faster results, lower costs, and elicit higher quality responses
• GPS and location technologies can deliver surveys in target areas
• MMR is most appealing in developing economies, where cell phones are the most used device for consumers and businesses

Disadvantages of Mobile Marketing Research

• Surveys must be short, simple, and to the point, no more than 15 questions and to take less than 15 minutes.
• Questions are more limited than those suitable for PC surveys
• Another serious limitation is the use of video due to bad streaming and other technical difficulties.
• Sample representativeness may be another serious issue.

Ethical Issues in Marketing Research

• Definition of the problem includes using surveys as a guise for selling or fundraising, pursuing personal agendas, and conducting unnecessary research.
• Developing an approach has ethical issues like using findings from specific projects for others, and soliciting proposals for expertise without pay.
• Research design ethics involve formulating a design for the researcher's benefit, and using questionable data.
• Fieldwork should avoid discomforting respondents or using unacceptable procedures.
• Data analysis includes avoiding identifying unsatisfactory respondents or violating assumptions, while interpreting results.
• Report preparation should avoid incomplete, biased, or inaccurate data.