Customer Research

1. Customer Research Learning Outcomes • Investigate primary and secondary research methods <C below • Define primary and secondary research • List primary and secondary research methods C> • Explain advantages and disadvantages of primary and secondary research B> • Analyse the benefits of hiring in a specialist marketing team to conduct market research A> • In addition to the above, you must have good QOWC & SPAG

2. Starter Why do businesses need to conduct market research? Discuss in 2/3 s (notes in back of books) NH – Check homework has been completed (Nutty Cereal)

3. Primary Research Research that is collected first hand by the researcher. The research is tailored towards the businesses needs. What examples can you think of?

4. Types of Primary Research SMSC How do we feel about being ‘cold called’ ? • Face-to-face interviews– interviewers ask people on the street or on their doorstep a series of questions. • Telephone interviews– tend to be short questions • Online surveys– using email or the Internet. Question -why has this become increasingly popular? • Questionnaires – sent in the post Question – what are the problems with send questionnaires in the post? • Focus groups/ consumer panels – a small group of people meet together with a “facilitator” who asks the panel to examine a product/ service idea and then asked in depth questions. This method is often used when a business is planning to introduce a new product or brand name. Could be tasting a new product.

5. Evaluation • What are the advantages and disadvantages of primary research? • 5 minutes thinking time

6. Advantages • Up to date. • Specific to the purpose – asks the questions the business wants answers to. • Collects data which no other business will have access to (the results are confidential). • In the case of online surveys and telephone interviews, the data can be obtained quite quickly (think about how quickly political opinion polls come out).

7. Disadvantages • Can be difficult to collect and/or take a long time to collect. • Is expensive to collect. • May provide mis-leading results if the sample is not large enough or chosen with care; or if the questionnaire questions are not worded properly.

8. Secondary Research Data that already exists and has been collected by someone else for another purpose. Sources of secondary data can come from within the firm itself – this is known as internal secondary data.  External secondarydata, on the other hand, is data that has been published by other organisations What are internal sources of secondary data? ...

9. Internal and External Secondary Research Internal sources of secondary data • Sales figures • Customer buying habits – information gained from loyalty cards External sources of secondary data • Commercial market research organisations e.g. MINTEL • The Government – e.g. Social Trends, www.statistics.gov. • Competitors – company reports, websites • Trade Publications – e.g., the Grocer • Newspapers • Internet

10. Advantages and Disadvantages What are the advantages and disadvantages of secondary research? 5 minutes This should be easy after doing the previous evaluation!

11. Advantages and Disadvantages of Secondary Research The main advantages of secondary research and data are that it is: • Saves time –collection and staffing (internal data is the quickest to collect) • Cheaper to collect on a large scale– time and staff. Government data, for example, is usually cheap or even free to access.  It is likely to be accurate and updated regularly.  The main disadvantages of primary research are that it: • Out of date • Not specific to purpose • Some forms can be expensive - Some publications can cost thousands of pounds

12. Is there enough time? • Discuss homework – Nutty Cereal