Marketing Research

Primary Data Sources Qualitative Research Can be of three types: Phenomenological When the marketing manager wants to know how the consumers use the products. Example: Focus Group Exploratory This kind of research generates hypotheses for further research, often quantitative Example: Open-Ended interview Clinical The manager explores the manager explores the reasoning behind costumer purchasing behavior. Example: In-Depth Interview

Focus Group Small groups of people typically chosen for their membership in various target group of interest. They usually are brought together in a room to have a discussion about a topic chosen by the marketing manager, wich is led by a professional moderator. The most popular use of focus groups is for phenomenological research, a basic understanding of how costumers use the product or service in question. The focus groups is probably the most misused of all marketing research methods, since marketing managers tend to dont understand the various type of groups, the purposes of each one and how to structure the group to achieve different type of results. The most common mistake of focus groups is attempting to use them to draw general conclusions because it is less expensive. Focus groups are a valuable source of information but they have their limits. Improvements in technologies have changed focus groups research: Videoconference started to be uses to reduce costs The telephone focus groups is also expanding, mainly to conduct indepth interviews Many companies started to offer Web-based focus groups ( 10-15% of focus groups are web based) such as online discussions and forums With Internet, marketing managers are allowed to moderate and to analyze a focus group discussion wherever they are in the world as well as conducting interviews live. Example: Using Skype With Internet companies started to be more and more quickly aware of consumers concerns and ideas having, for example, a help us create new product links space in their web-sites.

Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique(ZMET) while focus groups force costumers to think rationally by giving their top-of-mind responses to the moderators questions, ZMET force costumers to explain their true feelings with images, not words. Ethnographic research Observing the consumers behaviour in the purchase point, but how do they do that?

 Videocameras Teams and collaborators in the purchase point Filming interviews in the street asking about consumers impression of the brand Virtual shopping New technology incorporating computer graphics and threedimensional modelling that allows marketing managers to observe how consumers choose between different brands in a virtual reality-like setting Surveys Major portion of many research budgets is allocated to survey research, consisting in questionnaires. This is form of quantitive research. The two primary issues for the manager to consider are the sample from wich the responses are taken and the various surveys approaches that can be used. The construction of a useful survey can be more difficult than you may expect, the wording of a question may be biased and the possible responses can be either open-ended ( how many times did you go to the movies last month?) or fixed ( check off from the following list how many times you went to the movies last month) Surveys sampling considerations First, you have to establish the universe or a population. The results of any survey are only good as the sample taken. If the sample is biased, then the results cannot be considered representative of the population. It is usually assumed that samples are taken randomly. Although some random samples give more weight to subgroups or segments within the population. So, despite being random, we must be careful and aware of that. Survey types: - Personal interviews - Telephone interviews - Mail - E-mail - Internet Web-Sites Criteria to evaluate and choose survey alternatives: Cost Control How much control the data collector has in the data collection Response rate Potential for interviewer bias Time to obtain data Flexibility This characteristic describes how many different kinds of surveys formats and question types can be used Nonresponsive bias The people who respond the survey may be very different from the ones who dont

Technology affects survey research. Besides internet, fax and e-mail approaches have been used.

Panel - Is a set of costumers who are enlisted to give responses to questions or to provide data repeatedly over a period of time. Conventional surveys and focus groups are called cross-sectional data because they provide a slice of life at one point in time. Panels provide both cross-sectional data and time-series data. When correlated with other factors, panel data can provide useful longitudinal results that cross-sectional data cannot match. Panels Problems: Panel dropout (also called mortality) It is difficult for a market researcher to keep panel members sufficiently interested to remain on panels The people who agree to be part of a panel are not always representative of the underlying population. This can be a problem particularly for Internet-based panels, which may draw a particular group of fanatics Panel conditioning Sometimes, panels change the members behaviour

Types of panels: Continuous reporting panels: Require members to report all their purchases in certain product categories or to report kind of behaviours as it occurs Scanner Panel: Special kind of continuous panel in a grocery-purchasing context in which consumers are enlisted to allow companies like Nielsen to track their supermarket purchases through the electronic checkout scanners. Special-purpose panels: When certain company wants to set a panel for a particular reason. For example, software companies often engage potential customers to be beta testers for new versions in late stages of development.

Experiments