Marketing and Research
Lecture 1: Introduction to Marketing Research and Marketing research
industry
Research: How can you know the things that you need to know?
Market: What is it that you need to know?
Marketing research provides managers with new information to help them make decisions.
First Continuous and organized research was conducted in 1911 by Charles Coolidge Parlin, was was
hired to gather information and markets by the Curtis Publishing Company.
Marketing = the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and
exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
Crowdsourcing = the practice of obtaining services or ideas by asking for assistance from large groups of
people, generally online communities.
The marketing concept is a business philosophy that holds that the key to achieving organizational goals
consists of the company being more effective than competitors in creating, delivering, and
communicating customer value to its chosen target markets.
Marketing strategy consists of selecting a segment of the market as the company’s target market and
designing the proper “mix” of product/ service, price, promotion, and distribution system to meet the
wants and needs of the consumers within the target market.
Marketing research = the process of designing, gathering, analyzing, and reporting information that may
be used to solve a specific marketing problem. The function, to link the consumer to the marketer.
While the terms Marketing research and Market research are sometimes used interchangeably, market
research refers to applying marketing research to a specific market.
Basic Research = research that is conducted to expand knowledge rather than to solve a specific problem
Applied Research = research that is conducted to solve specific problems.
An MIS structure (Marketing Information System) consists of people, equipment, and procedures to
gather, sort, analyze, evaluate, and distribute needed, timely, and accurate information to marketing
decision makers. Components of MIS structure:
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, - Internal Reports Systems: What has been happening within the firm or company? The internal
report system gathers information generated within a firm, including orders, financial
statements, billing, receivables, inventory levels, stockouts, and so on.
- Marketing Intelligence System: What are the general trends and developments in markets,
politics, technology? “Clipping” bureaus. The marketing intelligence system is defined as a set of
procedures and sources used by managers to obtain everyday information about pertinent
developments in the environment. Such as scanning newspapers, magazines, trade publications.
- Marketing Decision Support System (DSS): How can we make the best use of what we (think) we
already know? Databases and their use and management. Marketing decision support system is
defined as collected data that may be accessed and analyzed using tools and techniques that
assist managers in decision making. Collected data stored in huge databases, such as break even
analysis, regression models, linear programming
- Marketing Research System: gathers information for specific situations facing the company that
is not gathered by the other MIS subsystems.
The philosophy of Return on Investment (ROI) pertains to assessing the profitability or value gained from
an investment relative to the initial cost or effort expended.
● One-time Purchases: In the context of one-time purchases, ROI typically refers to the immediate
benefit or value gained from a specific expenditure.
● Long-term investments involve a longer time horizon. ROI in this context considers the potential
for growth, income, or appreciation over an extended period. Calculating ROI for long-term
investments can be more complex due to factors like market volatility, compounding, and
potential additional costs (e.g., maintenance, taxes).
Service centered Marketing:
- Identify core competencies to have competitive advantage
- Identify potential customers who can benefit from the competencies
- Establish relations to make them create value, together with you
- Receive feedback, learn from it, improve the value that you offer
Decisions (get this data/ information through the Marketing Information System MIS:
- What is the target market?
- Are there competitors?
- Can we beat them?
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, - How do we choose a segment?
- How do you reach this segment?
- How do we measure its size?
- Pricing?
- What do they like and need in this segment?
Client side research or Supply-side research:
● Client-side Research: research conducted within an organization
DIY marketing research, refers to firms conducting their own marketing research
● Supply-side marketing research: research that is conducted by an outside firm hired to fulfill a
company’s marketing research needs. A Supplier firm may be referred to as an agency or simply
a supplier.
Full-service supplier firms have the capability to conduct the entire marketing research project for buyer
firms.
Limited-service supplier firms specialize in one, or at most, a few marketing research activities.
Ethics:
- Deontology: About rights of the individual
- Teleology: Individual costs vs group benefit
Ethical research:
- Treating research subjects fairly
- Confidentiality and Anonymity
- Maintain research integrity: no misrepresentation or omissions
- No other goals expert collecting data:
● No Selling = Sugging (selling under the guise of research)
● No Fundraising = Frugging (fundraising under the guise of research)
- The Transparency Initiative is a program by the AAPOR to encourage the routine disclosure of
methods used in research that is released to the public.
Lecture 2: Research steps + Establishing the need, define the problem,
and determining research objectives
The Marketing Research Process: The 11 Step process:
1. Establish the need for Marketing Research
2. Define the Problem
3. Establish Research Objectives
4. Determine Research Design
5. Identify Information Types and Sources
6. Determine Methods of Accessing data
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, 7. Design Data Collection forms
8. Determine the Sample plan and size
9. Collect Data
10. Analyze Data
11. Communicate the Insights
STEP 1: Establish the need for Marketing Research
The need for Marketing Research arises when managers must make decisions and they have inadequate
information.
Not all decisions will require marketing research, time and costs must be weighted against the value that
may possibly be derived from conducting marketing research. Research may not be needed when
- The information is already available
- The timing is wrong
- Costs outweigh the value.
● All methods of measuring the value of research should explicitly link the research results
to business impact.
● All methods of measuring the value of research should demonstrate that something
happened as a result of the research that would not have happened otherwise, and
quantify the financial value of that difference.
STEP 2: Define the Problem
Most important step, if the problem is incorrectly defined, all the steps that follow are wasted effort.
STEP 3: Establish Research Objectives
Research objectives tell the researcher exactly what information needs to be gathered and analyzed to
allow managers to make decisions related to a problem. Need to be very clear.
STEP 4: Determine Research Design
Research Design is the Research Approach used to meet the Research Objectives.
- Exploratory Research: a form of causal, informal research that is undertaken to learn more
about the research problem, learn terms and definitions, or identify research priorities. Often
conducted early on to help clients determine the research objectives.
- Descriptive Research: research that describes the phenomena of interest. Surveys undertaken to
describe things: Level of awareness of advertising, intentions to buy new product, satisfaction
level
- Causal Research: Causal studies attempt to uncover what factor or factors cause some event.
Causal studies are achieved from a class of studies we call experiments.
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