Chapter 4: Managing Marketing Information to Gain Customer Insights

Managing Marketing Information to Gain Customer Insights

• Marketing Information and Customer Insights
• Assessing Marketing Information Needs
• Developing Marketing Information
• Marketing Research
• Analyzing and Using Marketing Information
• Other Marketing Information Considerations

Developing Marketing Information

Steps in the Marketing Research Process::

• Defining the problem and research objectives.
• Developing the research plan,
• Implementing the research plan
• Interpreting and reporting the findings.

Developing Marketing Information

• Marketing Research: The systematic design, collection, analysis, and reporting of data relevant to a specific marketing situation facing an organization

Developing Marketing Information

Marketing Information Systems (MIS)

• Competitive Marketing Intelligence: The systematic collection and analysis of publicly available information about consumers, competitors and developments in the marketplace

MIS begins and ends with information

• First, it interacts with information users to assess information needs.
• Next, it interacts with the marketing environment to develop needed information through marketing intelligence activities, and marketing research.
• Finally, the MIS helps users to analyze and use the information to develop customer insights, make marketing decisions

Developing Marketing Information

Marketing Information and Customer Insights

Assessing Marketing Information Needs

Marketing Information Systems (MIS)

• Internal Databases: Electronic collections of consumer and market information obtained from data sources within the company network.

Companies are forming customer insights teams

• Include all company functional areas
• Collect information from a wide variety of sources
• Use insights to create more value for their customers

The real value of marketing research and marketing information lies in how it is used

MIS provides information to the company’s marketing and other managers and external partners such as suppliers, resellers, and marketing service agencies

Chapter 4

Marketing information system (MIS) consists of people and procedures for:

• Assessing the information needs
• Developing needed information
• Helping decision makers use the information for customer

Assessing Marketing Information Needs

Developing Marketing Information

Balancing what the information users would like to have against what they need and what is feasible to offer

• Too much information can be as harmful as too little

Marketing Information and Customer Insights

The real challenge is to find

the RIGHT information

• Marketers obtain information from:

• Consumers are now volunteering a tidal wave of bottom-up information
• Marketers don’t need more information; they need better information.
• Need to make better use of the information they already have.

Marketing Information and Customer Insights

Developing Marketing Information

Customer Insights

Developing the Research Plan

Defining the Problem and Research Objectives

Written Proposal:

Secondary Data

Written Proposal:

• Outlines sources of existing data
• Spells out the specific research approaches, contact methods, sampling plans, and instruments to gather data

• Fresh and deep insights into customers needs and wants
• Difficult to obtain
• Not obvious
• Customer’s unsure of their behavior
• Better information and more effective use of existing information

Data:

• Secondary data consists of information that already exists somewhere, having been collected for another purpose

• Primary data consists of information gathered for the special research plan

Customer needs and buying motives are often anything but obvious—consumers themselves usually can’t tell you exactly what they need and why they buy. To gain good customer insights, marketers must effectively manage marketing information from a wide range of sources.

Developing Marketing Information

Research Approaches:

• Experimental Research: Best for gathering causal information—cause-and-effect relationships

Research Approaches:

• Observational research involves gathering primary data by observing relevant people, actions, and situations
• Ethnographic research involves sending trained observers to watch and interact with consumers in their natural environment

Research Approaches:

• Survey Research: Best for descriptive information—knowledge, attitudes, preferences, and buying behavior
• Flexible
• People can be unable or unwilling to answer
• Gives misleading or pleasing answers
• Privacy concerns

Developing Marketing Information

Ethics?

• Customer privacy
• Misuse of research findings

• How do you feel about your privacy with online, phone, in-person, or mail surveys? Are some better than others? When might the questions feel like an Invasion of privacy or fraud?

Developing Marketing Information

Marketing Research Strengths and Weakness of Contact Methods

Focus Groups

• Six to 10 people
• Trained moderator
• Challenges
• Expensive
• Difficult to generalize from small group
• Consumers not always open and honest

Developing Marketing Information

Sampling Plan:

• Sample is a segment of the population selected for marketing research to represent the population as a whole
• Who is to be studied?
• How many people should be studied?
• How should the people be chosen?

• Information distribution involves entering information into databases and making it available in a time-useable manner
• Intranet provides information to employees and other stakeholders
• Extranet provides information to key customers and suppliers

Developing Marketing Information

Research Instruments:

• Questionnaires
• Most common
• Administered in person, by phone, or online
• Flexible
• Research must be careful with wording and ordering of questions

Online Marketing Research:

• Internet surveys
• Online panels
• Experiments,
• Online focus groups
• Brand communities
• Advantages:
• Low cost
• Speed
• Higher response rates
• Good for hard to reach groups

• Implementing the Research Plan

Developing Marketing Information

How should the people be chosen?

• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Research Instruments:

• Questionnaires
• Closed-end questions include all possible answers, and subjects make choices among them
• Provide answers that are easier to interpret and tabulate
• Open-end questions allow respondents to answer in their own words
• Useful in exploratory research

Developing Marketing Information

• What you can do with good CRM data:

Research Instruments:

• Mechanical Instruments
• People Meters
• Hand Scanners
• Retinal Scanners
• Biometric Scanners
• Neuromarketing