What is marketing research? What is its importance to marketing management? What are some of the more common sources of information used by marketing? Explain also what is meant by the marketing information system and by consumer behaviour.

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What is marketing research? What is its importance to marketing management? What are some of the more common sources of information used by marketing? Explain also what is meant by the marketing information system and by consumer behaviour.

Marketing Research

Marketing research is the systematic design, collection, analysis and reporting of data relevant to a specific marketing situation facing by a company. Marketing uses research when it needs information about a specific situation, as marketing intelligence will not provide the detailed information needed. A company can conduct its own marketing research or it can use an outside agency for some or all of the research, depending on its research skills and resources.

Marketing research includes a wide variety of activities, such as:

Market potential studies

Market share studies

Customer satisfaction assessment

Purchase behaviour studies

Marketing mix studies

Importance To Marketing Decisions

The marketing research helps marketing management in two aspects: information analysis and distributing information.

Information analysis: Information gathered by research usually requires more analysis. It helps managers to solve marketing problems and decisions by using those marketing research. It also helps managers answer questions like ‘what if’ and ‘which is best’, questions related to the different elements in the marketing mix, and to make marketing forecast.

Distributing information: Marketing information has no value until managers use it to make better marketing decisions. The gathered information must be distributed to the right marketing managers at the right time. Routine reports are used to make regular planning, implementation and control decisions.

However, marketing managers also need non-routine information for special situations and on-the-spot decisions. This kind of information must arrive in time to the marketing managers. Otherwise, it will be not useful at all. Nowadays, IT has allowed companies to decentralize their MIS’s (Marketing Information System). Managers can obtain information from the company databases or outside information services from any location, analyse it by using statistical packages and models, preparing reports using word processing and presentation software and communicating with others in the network.

It allows managers to get the information they need directly and quickly and to tailor it to their own needs.

   

Common Sources of Marketing Information

There are two main types of common sources of marketing information. One is secondary data and primary data.

Secondary data is those information has been already existed somewhere, having been collected for another purpose. It can be obtained quicker and inexpensive than primary data. It can also obtain some large scales data which individual firms are impossible to collect, i.e., the population size and gender distribution in Hong Kong.

The secondary data sources can be obtained at the following places:

-        The company’s internal database

-        Commercial data sources

  • Government publications
  • Commercial publications
  • Libraries
  • Other companies
  • Chambers of Commerce
  • Trade associations
  • Banks and other financial institution
  • Consulting firms
  • UN, World Bank and IMF
  • Consular information departments
  • Online databases and Internet data sources
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However, those data must be relevant, accurate, current and impartial.

Primary data is that information collected for the specific purpose at hand. It can be obtained by three researches/ approaches. They are observational approach, survey research and experimental research.

Observational approach is gathering primary data by observing relevant people, action and situations. It can be gathered through mechanical observation, such as people meters (attached to TV’s) or checkout scanners (in retail shops).

Survey research is gathering primary data by asking people questions about their knowledge, attitudes, preferences and buying behaviour. It is the most widely used method ...

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