Transcript Marketing Research

Marketing Research
Approaches
Research Approaches
• Observational Research
• Ethnographic Research
• Survey Research
• Experimental Research
Observational Research
• Involves gathering primary data by
observing relevant people, actions
& situations
• Can obtain info that people are
unwilling or unable to provide
• Feelings, attitudes, private
behavior, & motives cant be
observed
– Long-term or infrequent behavior
also difficult to observe
• Example:
– a bank evaluating new locations by
checking neighborhood locations &
the location of other banks
Ethnographic Research
• Form of observational
research that involves
sending trained observers
to watch and interact with
consumers in their
“natural habitat”
• Yields details that don’t
emerge from tradition
research questionnaires or
focus groups
Survey Research
• The most widely used method
for primary data collection, is
the approach best suited for
gathering descriptive info
• Major advantage is flexibility
– Can be used to obtain different
kinds of info in many different
situations
• Example:
– Restaurants asking customers
about their service
Experimental Research
• Gathering primary data by
selecting match groups of
subjects, giving them different
treatments, controlling related
factors, & checking for
differences in group responses
• Tries to explain cause-and-effect
relationships
• Example:
– Starbucks launching a new
beverage in 2 different cities at 2
different prices to determine the
best price to sell it at
Contact Methods
• Mail
• Telephone
• Personal
Interviewing
• Online Marketing
Research
Mail
• Mail questionnaires can be used to
collect large amounts of info at a lowcost per respondent
– Advantages
• More honest answers to personal questions
• No interviewer involved to bias the
respondent’s answers
– Disadvantages
• Not very flexible
• Take longer to complete –
often very low response rate
• Researcher has little control over the mail
questionnaire sample
Telephone
• Telephone interviewing is one of the
best methods for gathering info quickly
– Advantages:
• It provides greater flexibility than mail
questionnaires
• Higher response rates
• Interviewers can ask to speak to respondents
with the characteristics they want or by name
– Disadvantages:
• The cost per respondent is higher
• People may not want to discuss personal
questions with interviewer
• Introduces interviewer bias
• More hang-ups on telephone interviewer
Personal Interviewing
• Personal interviewing takes 2 forms:
– Individual: talks with people in their
homes, offices, on the street, or
shopping malls
• Flexible
• More costly than telephone interviews (3 to
4 times more)
– Group: consists of inviting 6 to 10
people to meet with a trained
moderator to talk about a product,
service, or organization
• Focus group interviewing
• Hard to generalize from results
Online Marketing Research
• Online marketing research: collecting
primary data online through Internet
surveys, online focus groups, Webbased experiments, or tracking
consumers online behavior
• Online research can take many forms:
– Web surveys
– Web experiments
• Quantitative research: conducting
marketing surveys and collecting
online data
Online Marketing Research
–Advantages:
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Speed
Low costs
More interacting & engaging
Easier to complete
Less intrusive
Higher response rate
–Disadvantages
• Some forms prone to interviewer effects
Online Focus Groups
• Gathering a small group of people online with a trained
moderator to chat about a product, service, or
organization and gain qualitative insights about
consumer attitudes and behavior
• Chat room discussions
• Online message boards
– Advantages
• Can bring a wider range of people together
faster
• Eliminates travel, lodging, & facility costs
– Disadvantages
• Lack real world dynamics of personal approaches
• Typed commentary & online “emoticons”(ex: )
restrict respondent expressiveness
Sampling Plan
• Sample: a segment of the population
selected for marketing research to
represent the population as a whole
• Designing the sample requires 3
decisions
1. Who is to be surveyed? (What
sampling unit?)
2. How many people should be
surveyed? (What sample size)
3. How should the people in the
sample be chosen? (What sampling
procedures)
Sampling Plan
– Who is to be surveyed? (What sampling unit?)
• Make sure you are interviewing the decision maker
– How many people should be surveyed? (What sample size?)
• Large samples (cost more) give more reliable results than
small samples
– May be unnecessary to sample entire target market
to get reliable results
– How should the people in the sample be chosen? (What
sampling procedure?)
• Probability samples: costly (confidence limits could be
measured for sampling error)
• Nonprobability samples (sampling error can’t be
measured)
Research Instruments - Questionnaire
• By person, phone or Online
• Closed End Question - include all the
possible answers; subjects make
choices among them
– Ex: multiple choice or scale questions
– Easier to interpret
• Open End Question - allow
respondents to answer in their own
words
– Reveal more than close-ended questions
(respondents aren't limited to answers)
– 1st question should create interest
– Last question could be difficult or personal
Research Instruments – Mechanical Devices
Monitors consumer’s behavior
–Examples:
»People put electronic devices in
their TVs to record certain
programs
»Checkout scanners record
shopper’s purchases
»Advertisers use eye cameras to
study viewers’ eye movements
while watching ads
»Neuromarketing measures brain
activity to learn how consumers
feel and respond
Implementing The Research Plan
• Researcher puts the research plan into action
– Involves collecting, processing, & analyzing the
info
1. Watch closely to make sure plan is followed
correctly
2. Process & analyze the data to isolate
important info & findings
3. Check data for accuracy and completeness
4. Compile results & compute statistical
measures
• Data collection:
– Can be carried out by marketing research staff or
outside firms
– Disadvantages:
• Collection phase is expensive
• Usually has errors
Interpreting & Reporting The Findings
• Steps the researcher must do:
1. Interpret the findings
2. Draw conclusions
3. Report them to management
• Present important findings & insights (useful in
important decisions made by management)
• Interpretation not left only to researchers
– Managers know more about the problems and decisions that must
be made
– But managers may be biased
• Managers & researchers must work together closely when
interpreting research results
– Both must share responsibility for the research process & resulting
decisions