AMERICAN COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY

CHAPTER
MARKETING RESEARCH AND INTELLIGENCE
 MARKETING RESEARCH AND INTELLIGENCE

Marketing decision is only as good as the information used

Information for decision is obtained through marketing
research and marketing intelligence.
Many companies use the term “market intelligence” marketing
information system and marketing research interchangeably
Marketing intelligence is a means of gathering everyday
information about developments in the marketing environment.
Marketing managers collect marketing intelligence by reading
books, newspapers, and trade publications; talking to customers,
suppliers, and distributors; and meeting with other company
managers.
 MARKETING INFORMATION SYSTEM

•A marketing information system (MIS) consists of people,

equipment, and procedures to gather, sort, analyze,
evaluate, and distribute needed, timely, and accurate
information to marketing decision makers.
•To carry out their analysis, planning, implementation, and
control responsibilities, marketing managers need
information about developments in the marketing
environment.
•The information required for marketing decision is
developed through internal company records, marketing
intelligence activities, marketing research.
MARKETING INFORMATION SYSTEM
 MARKETING INFORMATION SYSTEM

The information face of the market intelligence pyramid is built

upon a foundation consisting of four basic areas:
Competitor information
Product information
Market information
Customer information
Each of the four knowledge areas - competitor intelligence,
product intelligence, market understanding, and customer
insight-interacts to form a complete understanding of the market.
Marketing research is a critical and significant source of
information.
 MARKETING INFORMATION SYSTEM

Broad view
of Marketing
Intelligence
 MARKETING RESEARCH

Marketing research is a systematic design, collection,

analysis and presenting of data and findings pertinent to the
specific situation facing the company.
Marketing research process evolves a number of
steps.
1.Defining the problem and research objectives
2.Developing the research plan for collecting information
3.Implementing research plan-collecting and analyzing data
4.Interpreting and reporting Findings

Interpreting
and reporting
Findings
MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS
MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS
MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

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MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS
 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

2.1 Source of Data

Sources of data include secondary source of data and
primary data.
A. Secondary Data
Secondary data consists of information that already
exists somewhere, from internal-within the organization
such as documents reports etc, or external for example
government statistics, news papers, books etc, and data
base.
Research generally starts by gathering secondary data
because it is faster, cheaper.
 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Secondary Data Sources

Internal
 Financial Report  Strategic Plan
 Marketing/Sales Report  Internal Research documents
 Etc.
 Production/Operation Report
 Human Resource Report

External
 Central Statistics offices  Marketing Research Societies
 Ministry of trade and industries  University researches
 UN Statistical Yearbook  Foreign embassies, trade
 World Bank - general statistics missions
 Chambers of Commerce  News papers
 Management Associations  Libraries
 Etc,
 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Advantages and Disadvantages

The major advantage of secondary data is that it is economical (cheap), readily
available, quickly obtained. Its disadvantages Include
The data may have been collected and manipulated for a specific use;
therefore it may be incomplete, ambiguous or out of context.
Data may be compiled in different ways in different countries making
comparability difficult.
Data may be corrupted by methodological and interpretive problems, for
example, definitional error, sampling error, section error, non response
error, language, social organizations, trained workers, etc.
Data may be inflated or deflated for political purposes
Data may be Obsolete
Data from documented sources must, therefore, be treated with care and
caution.
 2.1 Source of Data
B. Primary Data
Primary data are acquired through research. Should secondary
data be insufficient to meet all needs (it seldom is!!) then it may
be necessary to conduct marketing research. When deciding to
gather primary data one has to be clear on the following:
Objectives - why is the data being gathered, for what
purpose and what are the proposed sources
Hypothesis development:
development tentative propositions that
need to be ascertained through the research.
The advantage of primary data is that it is relevant to the current
need and is more accurate. Its disadvantage is that it is expensive
and can take time.
 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

2. Primary Data Research Approach

Observational Research
Gathering data by observing people, There are a number of
actions and situations primary data research
(Exploratory) approaches. These include:

Survey Research
Asking individuals about
attitudes, preferences or
buying behaviors
(Descriptive)

Experimental Research
Using groups of people to
determine cause-and-effect
relationships
(Causal)16
 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Observational Research:
The gathering of primary data by observing the relevant
people, actions and situations. Observational research
can use:
Observation need to be made carefully because people
distort when they be come center of
attention(Howthorn Effect)
Mechanical devises such as people meters which are
attached to TV sets and measures who is watching
Single source data system electronic monitoring system
that links consumers exposure to TV advertising and
promotion 17
 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Survey Research
Asking individuals about attitudes, preferences
or buying behaviors (Descriptive). Needs a
careful preparation of survey instrument:

Questionnaires
Interview
And conducting the survey

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 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Experimental Research
Experimental research tries to determine
the cause and effect relationship. It best
suited causal research.
Selecting matched groups or subjects, giving
them different treatments by varying factors
and finding responses.

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 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

3. Contact methods
Research information can be collected by mail, telephone, Internet or by
personal interview.

Mail questionnaire
Advantages including: a large amount of information can be collected at
a low cost per respondent. There is no interviewer bias.
Disadvantage: Writing the questions, poor flexibility, poor respondent
response rate. Prize respondents to encourage response

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 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Telephone Interviewing
Advantage: Best for gathering information quickly, gives grater
flexibility than mail questionnaire
Disadvantages: Cost is high than mail, and there may be
interviewer bias. Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI)
can also be made.
Personal or Focus Group Interviewing
Personal interview can be done on an individual one-to-one basis
or by group interviewing. If group interview is used it should not
exceed 6-10 selected participants.
Advantage: flexible, good for probing qualitative information
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Disadvantage of personal interview: cost is high, high level of bias
 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Online Survey Methods

This is a computer aided research method which
involves a wide range of approach such as focus
groups and survey using email or HTML-coded
Web forms
Advantage
Response rate initially high now dropping-viruses
crate problems
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 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Contact methods
Mail Telephone Personal Online
Flexibility Poor Good Excellent Good
Quantity of Good Fair Excellent Good
Data Collected
Control of Excellent Fair Poor Fair
Interviewer
Control of Fair Excellent Fair Poor
Sample
Speed of Data Poor Excellent Good Excellent
Collection
Response Rate Fair Good Good Good
Cost Good Fair Poor Excellent

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 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

4. Determining How Many to Contact Sample

Studying the hole population is called a senses. A Senses may not
be feasible for a number of reasons. Including; cost, time, nature of
the population and so forth. Therefore research uses samples in
almost all of the time.
Sampling Plan
Marketing research usually draws conclusions about large groups
of consumers by studying a small sample of the total consumer
population.
A sample is the segment of the population that has been selected
to represent the population as a whole.
A sampling form is a list of business or private names such as the
list of business names of the top 500 companies. 24
 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Developing a Sampling Plan

Probability or
Non-probability Who is to be
sampling? surveyed?

Sample -
representative
segment of the
population

How should the How many

sample be should be
chosen? surveyed?

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 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Designing the Sampling Plan

Designing the sampling plan requires three decisions
1. Who is to be surveyed?
2. How many people should be surveyed? (if chosen
well, a sample of less than 1% of population can
often give good reliability)
3. How should the people in the sample be selected?
In order to obtain a representative sample, researchers
can draw on one of three types of probability
sampling. 26
 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Sampling Can be categorized into probability sampling and non probability

sampling. Probability sampling is a random sampling in which every member
of the designated population has an equal or known probability of being
chosen for analysis. Sampling error in probability sampling can be measured
Probability sampling include
Simple random sampling:
sampling every member of the population has a known and
equal chance of selection. For example take the population and select any
five-such as in ballots
Systematic random sampling:
sampling Such as select every twenty fifth person in a
telephone directory
Stratified random sampling:
sampling Divide the population into mutually exclusive
groups such as age, or sex, and draw sampling from each strata

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 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Cluster or area sampling: A population is divided into

mutually exclusive groups such as blocks, geographic areas,
and the researcher draws a sample of the groups to be
interviewed.

Non Probability sampling

When probability costs are high or takes to much time then non-probability
sampling can be undertaken. Sampling error in non-probability sampling can
not be determined. Non Probability sampling include:

Convenience Sampling:
Sampling selects any person as one meets
Judgmental: Select on the bases of who should be interviewed
among the population
Quota Sampling:
Sampling Decide on the number of proportion to be
interviewed 28
 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

5. Designing Research Instruments

Questionnaire Mechanical Devices

•What to ask? • People
• Form of each Meters
• Grocery Scanners
question?
• Wording? • Galvanometer
• Ordering?

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 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Research Instruments
In Collecting primary data, researchers have two main research
instruments: The Questionnaire and Mechanical Devices

Questionnaire
Questionnaire are the most common instruments used.
They must carefully developed and tested before they can be
used on a large scale. Care must be taken with the questions
asked and how they are worded
Care must be taken with the order of questions such as
funneled and reversed funnel
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 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Types of Questionnaire
Questions can be ether closed ended or open ended.
Open ended
 Open ended allow respondents to answer in their own words
 They are usually flexible
 Are usually good for exploratory research, to find out what the
respondent thinks but not for measuring how many people think in a
certain way
 Difficult to record
Closed ended
The respondent chooses from alternative responses It is controlled
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Easier to record and interpret
 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Mechanical Devices
These include:
‘People meters’
meters which are attached to TV sets to
measure who watches what programs, channels and at
what times and supermarket scanners
Galvanometer is used to measure to measure a subjects
interest and emotional response to different stimuli such
as exposing people to different ads or message and
measure their physical reaction
Eye cameras can also be used to measure the eye
movement and pupil dilation 32
 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

3. Implementing the Research Plan

Collection
of
Data

Processing of Research
Data Plan

Analyzing the
Data
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 2.1 Source of Data
Implementing the research plan-collecting and
analyzing the data
Where large scale research is to be undertaken it is often
necessary to do experimental research before committing funds
to a full scale project.

Data collection can be used by using the organization’s own

staff or by using an outside firm. Data collection is the most
expensive stage or the research process
Processing Data: Data from questionnaire must be checked for
accuracy and completeness and coded for computer analysis.
Analyze Data: The data is then analyzed using statistical software
programs such as SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social
Sciences) to tabulate the results
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 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

4. Interpreting and Reporting Findings

Interpret the Findings

Draw Conclusions

Report to Management

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 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Interpreting and reporting the Findings

The researcher must interpret the findings, draw conclusions
and report them to management
Interpretation should not be left to the researcher but should
be developed in conjunction with marketing manager
When presenting the report to management care must be
taken not to overwhelm management with to many numbers
and statistical jargon
Interpretation is an important phase of the marketing
research processes.
Managers and researchers must work together when
interpreting research results and share responsibility for
research process and resulting decisions. 36
 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Collecting Data
Data collection is the most expensive stage or the research
process. Data collection can be used by using the organization’s
own staff or by using an outside firm. Data collectors need to
have knowledge and training on how to collect data.
Data gathered through questionnaire must be checked for
accuracy and completeness and edited and coded for computer
analysis. The data is then analyzed using statistical software
programs such as SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social
Sciences) to tabulate the results
 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

4. Interpreting and Reporting Findings

Interpret the Findings

Draw Conclusions

Report to Management

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 MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Interpreting and Reporting the Findings

The researcher must interpret the findings, draw conclusions and
report them to management
Interpretation should not be left to the researcher but should be
developed in conjunction with marketing manager
When presenting the report to management care must be taken
not to overwhelm management with to many numbers and
statistical jargon
Interpretation is an important phase of the marketing research
processes.
Managers and researchers must work together when interpreting
research results and share responsibility for research process and
resulting decisions. 39