Market Research

1. Market Research Marketing I – Mr. Yates

2. What is it?? • Market research is the process of systematically gathering, recording and analyzing data and information about customers, competitors and the market. • Its uses include: • helping create a business plan, • launch a new product or service, • fine tune existing products and services, • and expand into new markets.

3. Consumer & B2B • Consumer marketing research studies the buying habits of individual people • while business-to-business (B2B) marketing research investigates the markets for products sold by one business to another.

4. For what? / whom? • Market research is valuable for all persons involved in a business! • Market research can be used to determine which portion of the population will purchase a product/service, • based on variables like age, gender, location and income level.

5. Questions it answers • What is happening in the market? • What are the trends? • Who are the competitors? • How do consumers talk about the products in the market? • Which needs are important? • Are their needs being met by our current products?

6. What and how! • Market research is for discovering what people want, need, or believe. • It can also involve discovering how they act. • Once that research is complete it can be used to determine how to market your specific product.

7. Research Types • Distribution channel • Internet strategic intelligence • Marketing effectiveness • Positioning • Price elasticity • Sales forecasting • Segmentation research • Online panel • Test marketing • Viral Marketing Research • Social Networking Potential • Ad Tracking • Advertising Research • Brand equity • Brand name testing • Commercial eye tracking • Concept testing • Coolhunting • Buyer decision processes • Copy testing • Customer satisfaction studies

8. Research Methods • Qualitative marketing research - generally used for exploratory purposes – • small number of respondents - not generalizable to the whole population – • statistical significance and confidence not calculated – • examples include focus groups, in-depth interviews, and projective techniques

9. Research Methods • Quantitative marketing research - generally used to draw conclusions - tests a specific hypothesis – • uses random sampling techniques so as to infer from the sample to the population – • involves a large number of respondents – • examples include surveys and questionnaires

10. Exploratory or Conclusive? • Exploratory research provides insights into and comprehension of an issue or situation. • It should draw definitive conclusions only with extreme caution. • Conclusive research draws conclusions: the results of the study can be generalized to the whole population.

11. concepts • Conceptualization means the process of converting vague mental images into definable concepts. • Operationalization is the process of converting concepts into specific observable behaviors that a researcher can measure. • Precision refers to the exactness of any given measure.

12. Reliability / Validity • Reliability refers to the likelihood you would yield the same results if re-measured. • Validity refers to the extent to which a measure provides data that captures the data you were trying to define in the study. • It asks, “Are we measuring what we intended to measure?”

13. Interesting Methods • Mystery shopping - An employee or representative of the market research firm anonymously contacts a salesperson and indicates he or she is shopping for a product. • The shopper then records the entire experience. • This method is often used for quality control or for researching competitors' products. • Test marketing - a small-scale product launch used to determine the likely acceptance of the product when it is introduced into a wider market

14. The Phonies! • Sugging (or selling under the guise of market research) forms a sales technique in which sales people pretend to conduct marketing research, for a later sales call. • Frugging comprises the practice of soliciting funds under the pretense of being a research organization.