CONDUCTING MARKETING RESEARCH AND FORECASTING DEMAND
CONDUCTING MARKETING RESEARCH AND FORECASTING
DEMAND
The Marketing Research System
• We define marketing research as the systematic design, collection, analysis, and reporting of data and findings relevant to a specific marketing situation facing the company.
The Marketing Research Process
The Marketing Research Process
• Step 1: Define the Problem, the Decision Alternatives, and the Research Objectives
• Step 2: Develop the Research Plan • Step 3: Collect the Information • Step 4: Analyze the Information • Step 5: Present the Findings • Step 6: Make the Decision
RESEARCH APPROACHES • Observational Research. Consumers can be unobtrusively observed
as they shop or as they consume products. • Focus Group Research .A focus group is a gathering of six to ten
people who are carefully selected based on certain demographic, psychographic, or other considerations and brought together to discuss at length various topics of interest.
• Survey Research. Companies undertake surveys to learn about people's knowledge, beliefs, preferences, and satisfaction, and to measure these magnitudes in the general population.
• Behavioral Data Customers leave traces of their purchasing behavior in store scanning data, catalog purchases, and customer databases.
• Experimental Research . The most scientifically valid research is experimental research. The purpose of experimental research is to capture cause-and-effect relationships
RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS
• Questionnaires • Qualitative Measures
SAMPLING PLAN
• 1. Sampling unit: Who is to be surveyed?• 2. Sample size: How many people should be
surveyed? • 3. Sampling procedure: How should the
respondents be chosen?
Probability and Nonprobability Samples
CONTACT METHODS
• Mail Questionnaire • Telephone Interview • Personal Interview • Online Interview
MDSS
• MIT's John Little defines a marketing decision support system (MDSS) as a coordinated collection of data, systems, tools, and techniques with supporting software and hardware by which an organization gathers and interprets relevant information from business and environment and turns it into a basis for marketing action.
Marketing Metrics
• Marketing metrics is the set of measures that helps firms to quantify, compare, and interpret their marketing performance.
Sample Marketing Metrics
MARKET DEMAND
• Market demand for a product is the total volume that would be bought by a defined customer group in a defined geographical area in a defined time period in a defined marketing environment under a defined marketing program.
COMPANY DEMAND
• Company demand is the company's estimated share of market demand at alternative levels of company marketing effort in a given time period.
Estimating Current Demand
• To estimate current demand, companies attempt to determine total market potential, area market potential, industry sales, and market share.
• To estimate future demand, companies survey buyers' intentions, solicit their sales force's input, gather expert opinions, or engage in market testing.
• Mathematical models, advanced statistical techniques, and computerized data collection procedures are essential to all types of demand and sales forecasting.