Knowledge is Power

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Knowledge is Power

• Marketing Information System (MIS) determines
  what information managers need and then gathers,
  sorts, analyzes, stores, and distributes relevant
  and timely marketing information to system users
• 3 components to MIS
• data
• computer hardware and software
• MIS experts

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The Marketing Information System
Internal Data
Marketing Intelligence
Marketing Research
Acquired Databases
Computer Hardware and Software

• Information for
• Marketing Decisions

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Marketing Information System

• Internal Data System - internal system for
  communication (e.g., intranet)
• Marketing Intelligence - method to get
  information about the environment
• Marketing Research - process of collecting,
  analyzing, and interpreting data about customers,
  competitors, and the business environment to
  improve marketing effectiveness

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Marketing Research Data

• Syndicated research reports
• collected and compiled by secondary data firms on
  a regular basis and sold
• Custom research reports
• primary data collected to provide answers to
  specific questions

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Marketing Decision Support Systems
Marketing Manager/ Decision Maker
Interactive Software
Information Needed for Decision Making
MIS Data
Statistical and Modeling Software
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Step 1 Define the Problem

• What is the management decision?
• Specify the research objectives translate the
  management decision into research objectives
• Identify the consumer population of interest
• Place the problem in an environmental context
  what are the underlying assumptions?

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Step 2 Determine the Design

• Can the information be acquired from existing
  data?
• If so, secondary data sources will be utilized
• If not, primary research will be necessary

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Research Designs
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Research Designs
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Exploratory Research

• Generally provides qualitative data
• Does it exist, what is it?
• May take several forms
• interviews
• focus groups
• case studies
• Ethnography

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Descriptive Research

• Generally provides quantitative data
• How big is the market?
• Utilizes large sample of participants as base
• Designs
• Cross-sectional design involves the systematic
  collection of quantitative information from one
  or more samples of respondents at one point in
  time
• Longitudinal design tracks the responses of the
  same sample of respondents over time

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Causal Research

• Attempts to understand cause-and-effect
  relationships
• Factors that might cause a change are independent
  variables while the variables that are affected
  are dependent variables
• Experimental design allows researchers to control
  possible explanations for the effect

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Step 3 Choose the Method for Collecting Primary
Data

• Communication
• Mail questionnaires
• Telephone interviews
• Face-to-face interviews
• Online questionnaires
• Observation
• Personal
• Mechanical

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Mail Questionnaires

• Disadvantages
• Slow return speed
• Low response rates typical
• Inflexible questionnaire
• Length of survey is limited

• Advantages
• Respondents feel anonymous
• Low cost
• Good for ongoing research

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Telephone Interviews

• Advantages
• Fast
• High flexibility in questioning
• Low cost
• Limited interviewer bias

• Disadvantages
• Decreasing levels of cooperation
• Limited questionnaire length
• Consumers screen calls

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Face-to-Face Interviews

• Advantages
• Flexibility of questioning
• Long questionnaires possible
• Can help explain questions
• Can use visuals

• Disadvantages
• High cost
• Interviewer bias possible
• Time requirements are high

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Online Questionnaires

• Disadvantages
• Unclear who is responding
• No assurance of honesty
• Limited questionnaire length
• Limitations inherent with self-selected samples

• Advantages
• Instant data collection
• Flexible question patterns
• Low cost
• No interviewer bias
• Access regardless of geographic location

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Observation

• Personal observation
• traffic analysis
• recording how products are used
• Unobtrusive measures
• pantry checks
• garbage search
• Mechanical observation
• people meters

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Data Quality

• Validity - extent to which the research measures
  what it was intended to measure
• Reliability - extent to which research
  measurement techniques are free of errors
• Representativeness - extent to which consumers in
  the study are similar to the target of interest

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Step 4 Design the Sample

• Probability samples
• each member of the population has an equal and
  known chance of being included in the sample
• allows for inferences to be made about the
  population
• Non-probability samples
• unequal chance of being included in the sample
• limits inferences to the population

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Probability Samples

• Simple random sample
• Systematic random sample
• Stratified sample

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Non-Probability Samples

• Convenience sample
• Quota sample

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Step 5 Collect the Data

• Implementation phase
• Special issues in data collection
• Gathering Data in Foreign Countries
• Challenges due to access, coverage, and language
• Single Source Data
• Data on purchasing behavior and advertising
  exposure are measured for members of a consumer
  panel using television meters, retail scanners,
  and split-cable technology

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Step 6 Analyze and Interpret Data

• Enter, clean, and code data
• Choose appropriate techniques for analysis
• Interpret analysis

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Step 7 Prepare Research Report

• Who will be receiving the Report?
• Executive summary
• A description of research methods
• Discussion of results
• Limitations of study
• Conclusions and recommendations

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Online Research

• Online Tracking
• Cookies
• Testing, Questionnaires, and Focus Groups

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Online Tracking

• The Internet offers the ability to track and
  monitor consumers while they surf
• Several behaviors can be monitored
• What sites are visited?
• How long did the visitor stay?
• What types of information did they collect at the
  site?
• Where did they go after they left?

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Cookies

• text files inserted on a users hard drive by an
  Internet site
• allow for details of a web visit to be stored and
  tracked with future visits
• provide a way of observing behavior and
  customizing web sites and offerings to specific
  users
• For consumers, cookies represent a trade-off
  between privacy and customization