Transcript Introduction to Marketing Research

Introduction to Marketing
Research
MAR 6648: Marketing Research
January 4, 2010
Welcome!
• Today’s agenda:
– Introduce ourselves!
– Go over the syllabus
– Get our feet wet
So what is Marketing Research?
• A vague, official definition:
– “Marketing Research is the function that links the
consumer, customer, and public to the marketer
through information”
• Basically, figuring out what consumers want and
expect from your company
• This information is used to:
– Identify and define marketing opportunities and
problems
– Generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions
– Monitor marketing performance
The Marketing Research Industry
• A $12 billion industry
• Biggest marketing research company:
– The Nielsen Company ($5B)—they do more than
TV
• Large CPG companies have internal research
departments
• Marketing Research skills are always in high
demand by organizations
Marketers and Marketing Researchers
Marketing
Decision
Maker
Customers
Marketing
Decision
Maker/Research
Marketing
Researche
r
Competition
Traditional
Company &
environment
Customers
Competition
Emerging
Company &
environment
The Marketing Planning Process
Marketing
Strategy
Marketing
Program
Evaluation
Marketing Mix
Plan
Refinement
Segmentation
Decision
Assess
Opportunities &
Threats
Targeting
Positioning
Customer
Analysis
Analysis
&
Research
Market
Situation
Analysis
Product
Analysis
Price Analysis
Customer
Satisfaction
Promotion
Analysis
Performance
Monitoring
Competitor
Analysis
Company
Analysis
Distribution
Analysis
Qualitative Research
• Usually done to get a feel for a problem before
really digging in analytically
– Projective techniques
– Individual Interviews
– Focus groups and group interviews
– Ethnographic consumer research
Quantitative Research
• More systematic investigation of quantitative
properties and their relationships
– Descriptive research
• Syndicated data sources
• Surveys and attitude measurement
• Statistical techniques
– Causal research
• Experimentation
Technology and Marketing Research
• New technology means new techniques
• Some “traditional” approaches
– Focus groups
– Design questionnaires and sample a set of your
customers
– Recall tests
– Phone interviews
Technology and Marketing Research
• Some modern approaches
– Use customer databases to analyze customer
behavior
• Frequent shopper databases
• Direct Mail Databases
– Monitor web discussion forums
– Monitor social networks, blogs, etc.
Technology and Marketing Research
• Some really modern approaches
– Forecasting
• Track downloads and other activity on peer-to-peer
file-sharing networks
• Prediction markets
– Live tracking of customer behavior
• TiVo
• RFID
The Four Ps
• Product
• Place
• Price
• Promotion
Some key lessons to anticipate
• Modern marketing research is much more than
focus groups!
• Marketing research is an integral part of the
Marketing Planning Process
• The best managers use marketing research as a
key tool in decision making
• The future/the present: Marketing research and
marketing will be intertwined
• Maybe the most important class you’ll take in
marketing!
What this class will do (I hope!)
• Convince you that Marketing Research is fun,
cool, and invaluable
• Add a variety of Marketing Research
techniques to your toolbox
• Help you identify, think through, and solve
marketing problems
Summary
• Marketing Research is vital to the success of
any firm
• There are many tools in a Marketing
Researcher’s toolbox—let’s add to them!
• Welcome to class!