Marketing Research and Information Systems

Avoid ambiguity
Problem Definition Be specific but not too rigid

Research Objective Measurable Watch for symptoms

Specific
Research Design Exploratory
Descriptive
census
Secondary Causative
Source of Data Sample
Primary
Observation
Data Collection Techniques Experimentation
Tools Survey
Data Analysis
Focus Group
(Primary,
secondary and Questionnaire
advanced)
Interview schedule

Report and Association and

presentation Projection test (TAT)
5.2
 Marketing Research problem is information
oriented, narrowly and precisely defined.
 Response to following three key questions can help
sharply define marketing research problem:
 Purpose of information being sought

 Whether the information already exist; &

 Whether the question posed by decision maker

can be researched

5.4
SOURCES OF DATA

1. Primary Data

2. Secondary Data

5.5
 Sources of Secondary Data
1. Organizations, journals and newspapers
2. Company’s Internal Database
 The most common source of internal database is the sales call report,
sales territory information system and brand score cards.
 The fastest growing usage of an internal database is database marketing.
 database marketing can assist in:
1. Identification of most and least profitable customers.
2. Identification of attractive market segments and target efforts with
greater efficiency and effectiveness.
3. Evaluation of sales territories
4. Identification of new market opportunities.

5. Evaluation or modification of marketing programmes .

5.6
Data Collection
 A Researcher needs to be more clear on
 Procedure of Data Collection
 Tools for Data Collection
 Data can be collected through any or combinations of
following techniques :
 Observation – Observing what a customer is buying and
doing in the store.Involves how he behaves in the shopping
area,how he or she dresses up, & what the customer says
when he or she sees the product.
 Experimentation- Experimenting with new product
ideas,advertising copies and campaigns, sales promotion
ideas,pricing and distribution strategies with the target
segment.
 Uncontrolled Experimentation- Test Marketing the new
product and market strategy in the market environment with
all uncontrollable elements playing the role.
Data Collection
 Controlled & Simulated Experimentation- Here the external
environment variables (specially competition) are controlled and
customer feedback monitored. Pre testing advertising campaigns or
with a select customer groups by showing the product & competition
advertisements of together are examples of controlled
experimentation.
 Survey – Carrying out opinion polls involving customers, sales
persons, dealers, traders and experts. Customer and trade surveys are
also very common.
 Focus Groups – This helps researchers to understand the
subconscious self of the customer
 Tools of data collection
 The tools are –
 Questionnaire- used for the survey method
 Interview Schedule – used mainly for exploratory research
 Association Tests – primarily used in qualitative research.
 Steps in Questionnaire Design
Preliminary issues like research objectives, target response, etc.

Decision on issues to be probed/asked

Decision on response format, I.e whether close-ended or open-ended response

Wording/style of the questions and what to avoid

Sequencing the questions

Conditions of questions

Pre-test, revise(if need be) and finalise 5.3

Questionnaire Design
 Close-ended v/s Open-ended Questions –
 A close ended question is one where the respondent has to select a
response from one among the multiple choices offered to him or her.
 Such a questionnaire can be easily tabulated and analyzed. But can be
used only when the researcher understands customer behavior well.
 If the behavior is unknown and researcher wishes to probe,open ended
questions will deliver results.
 Measurement of Attitudes- Most research exercises measure
attitudes of individuals. The attitude of a consumer towards a
particular brand of a product or service is a function of –
a) The number of consumers of that brand.
b) At a specific time & in a given geographical area,who are
c) Personally interviewed, using a
d) Specified attitudinal scale,to obtain
e) The response information provided by the attitude scale.
Consumers attitude may be understood as numerical ratings on a like and
dislike
scale.
Scales employed in Measuring
Attitude
 Scales are of four types –
a) Nominal Scale – This permits the most elementary mathematical
analysis.Here numbers are used only for identification purposes.
b) Ordinal Scale – These are ranking scales. Requires the customers
ability to distinguish between the elements according to a single
attribute and direction.
c) Interval scales – These scales allow an individual to make meaningful
statements about differences separating two objects.
A typical example of interval example is the preference for a brand of
perfume exhibited by a consumer on the scale
a) I like it the most
b) I like it
c) I neither like it or dislike it
d) I dislike it
e) I dislike it the most
Responses measured on these scales can be analyzed using statistical tools
like
mean, standard deviation and correlation of co-efficient.
Scales employed in Measuring
Attitude
 Ratio Scales – It possesses a unique zero point and all
arithmetical operations are possible here.
 Now three types of scaling can be identified-
a) Respondent Centered Approach- Researcher examines
systematic variation across respondents.
b) Stimulus Centered Approach – Focus is on studying the
variations across different brands (stimulus) of detergents
on the “gentleness on the hands” (attributes).
c) Response Approach – Researcher examines both (a) and
(b)
 The Semantic Differential is a type of quantitative
judgement that results in scales that are often further
analyzed by such techniques as factor analysis.It enables the
researcher to probe both the direction & the intensity of
respondents attitudes towards such concepts as corporate
image, advertising image & brand image.
Data Analysis
 Raw data has no usage in marketing research.Most elementary method is arithmetical
analysis using percentile and ratios.
 Statistical analysis like mean, median, mode, percentages,standard deviation and
coefficient of correlation can be used.
 Today increasing use of marketing decision support system (MDSS).It is a system that
consists of data collection tools and techniques for analysis with supporting software &
hardware. This is used by an organization to gather and interpret relevant information
from its environment and convert it into a basis for marketing actions. commonly used
decision models used by marketers are:
(a) Markov-process model which helps decision maker to understand the probability of
moving from current state to any future state. For example, a brand manager of an
FMCG Company can determine switching and retention rate for his / her brand of toilet
soap over a period of time and based on it the brand’s ultimate share.
(b) Queuing model: Shows the waiting time and queue length that can be expected in
any system, given the arrival & service times & the number of service channels. A
retail manager can use this model to plan his customer service and check out
counters on week days & weekends and holidays. He can even use this model to plan
the parking facilities on weekdays, weekends & holidays. Similarly, marketing
manager for petroleum company can use it to plan his logistics.
Data Analysis
         (c) Brand Aid model: This is a marketing mix model
focused on consumer goods industry. The model contains sub
models for advertising, pricing & competition. The model is
calibrated with a creative blending of judgment, historical
analysis, tracking and experimentation.
 (d) Mediac: This is a media planning model used by
advertisers. This model includes analysis of market segments,
sales potential estimation and understanding of issues in
consumer learning (like forgetting) timing issues & competitor
media schedules.
 (c) Sales Response Models: These models estimate
functional relations between one or more marketing variables
like sales force size and resulting sales & demand level.
3. World wide web

 Internet discussion groups and special interest groups

as a source of secondary information.
 Databases on CD-ROM
 Geographic Information Systems

Advantages of Secondary Data

 Economies of time and cost

 Convenience
 Data may offer a solution to the research problem

5.7
MARKETING INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM
 Marketing Research provides information at a
specific time on customers, trade.competition
and future trends in each of these segments.
 Components of Intelligence systems-
a) Customer Intelligence- Provides useful
information on a customers business,preferences
or loyalties,personal demographics details etc.
b) Competitor Intelligence – Gives information
on strengths/weaknesses of each territory, the
strategy/tactics used by them and how the
customer procures competitor brands.

5.8
MARKETING INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Order generation, processing, delivery and
payment cycle.
 Sales management information giving details
on firm’s sales, market share, profitability and
trends in each market.
 Payment history
 Orders Lost/Won

Brand Monitors
 Distribution Audit Reports

Service Monitor Reports
 Product Performance Reports

5.
 Typically any such system provides a
perspective at three different levels.

Transaction processing / level
 Transaction level information system is useful at the
sales person level

Managerial and operational level
 Reports on performance branch, region and product,
sundry debtors status etc. form a part of managerial
and operation level information system.

Strategic level
 National sales data, relative market, share, shifts in
customer preferences, competition in different
product / markets, receivables etc are information
used at the strategic level i.e. at the top management
level.
 Decision making is a five step
sequence.

Source

Data

Predictions/
Inferences/
Generalizations Action

Values &
Choice
 Warehousing
 Data warehouse is an I.T architecture aimed
at storing and organising information in a
meaningful manner.
 Consists of a set of programmes that extract
data from the operational environment like
reports on sales call, branch and regional
performance, product/brand customer
complaints, service call etc.
 The strategy of data warehousing involves
providing data to the users in meaningful
manner which can help them to take an
operational and strategic decision.
 Successful data warehousing involves
the following:
 Providing information both to the operational and
strategic decision-maker
 Data warehouse often supports analysis of
trends overtime and comparisons of current and
historical data.

The idea behind data mining, then, is the

"non -trivial process of identifying valid,
novel, potentially useful, and ultimately
understandable patterns in data."
Future Trends : Online Mining
(OLM) & Web Mining (WM)

Online Data Mining (ODM); also called OLAP

mining is among the many different
paradigms and architectures for data mining
systems. It integrates online analytical
processing with data mining and mining
knowledge in multi-dimensional databases.