IMPROVING DECISIONS WITH MARKETING INFORMATION Effective marketing requires good information Managers need accurate information about

what is happening in the market to make a good marketing decision. There are two key sources that marketing managers can turn to for information to make better decisions. These are: 1. Marketing research procedures that develop and analyze new information about a market. 2. Marketing information system (MIS) organized way of CONTINUALLY gathering, accessing and analyzing information. Marketing Information System Makes information available and accessible Marketing managers must help develop an MIS Get more information faster and easier An intranet is easy to update Intranet: A system for linking computers within a company An MIS (Marketing Information System) organizes incoming information from information sources (market research studies, internal data sources, external data sources) into a place where databases are stored, also called as data warehouse. The Decision Support System (DSS) helps the marketing manager to get and use information as he or she is making decisions. It questions the marketing model and will receive an answer immediately. Marketing Model: statement of relationships among the marketing variables and will show the estimation of sales regarding the marketing mix. Marketing Research Guided by the scientific method: 1. Defining the problem 2. Analyzing the situation 3. Getting the problem-specific data 4. Interpreting the data 5. Solving the problem Setting research objectives may require more understanding. A manager must include all the possible problem areas then narrow it down after the situational analysis to final research objectives. Situation Analysis: It is an informal study of what information is already available in the problem area. It should also use relevant secondary data. Secondary Data: Information that has been collected or published already by other firms.