PBL 2: Marketing

What are two advantages marketers have for identifying significant marketplace changes

1. disciplined methods for collecting information

2. time spent interacting with customers and observing competitors

Marketing Information System and What it Relies on?

consists of people, equipment, procedures that gather and evaluate needed data for marketing decision makers

• Internal Records, Marketing Intelligence System and Marketing Research

Internal Records Function

to identify new opportunities and potential problems

• Oder-to-Payment-Cycle, Sales Information System and Databases (Warehouses and Mining)

Order-To Payment Cycle

This produces raw internal data about orders, stock, deliveries and payments.

Sales Information System

The raw data is organized into timely and accurate sales reports.

Marketing managers can see what is selling (ex.)

They must interpret the reports (carefully).

Databases, Warehouses and Mining

• A data warehouse combines large amounts of information from different sources in one central location.

• Companies analyse the stored data to discover patterns and relationships.

Marketing Intelligence System

used to obtain information about developments in the marketing environment (newspapers, talking to consumers and social media)

What are the 8 actions to improve the quantity and quality of marketing intelligence

• Motivate the sales force to spot and report new developments

• Motivate intermediaries to pass along important intelligence

• Hire external experts to collect intelligence

• Network externally and internally

• Set up customer advisory panel

• Take advantage of government-related data

• Purchase information from outside research firms

• Collect marketing intelligence on internet

Needs and Trends (3)

Successful companies create new solutions to unmet needs and trends

• Fad: temporary popular trend that spikes demand overnight and disappears just as quickly

• Trend: a direction of events/products with durability (provides strategic direction)

• Mega trend: technological change that influences us for some time

Six Major Forces in Macroenvironment

Their interactions lead to new opportunities and threats

• demographic, economic, sociocultural, political-legal, natural and technological

The Demographic Environment

Population, Age-Mix, Ethnic, Educational Groups (desire for high quality books) and Household patterns

The Economic Environment

Purchasing Power depends on consumer income, savings, debt
- fluctuating purchasing power affects businesses that create products for high-income and price sensitive consumers

Income distributions in countries

The Sociocultural Environment and Subcultures

peoples beliefs, lifestyles and attitudes influence what they buy and how companies should communicate with them

Subcultures: groups with shared values emerging from life experiences, once companies have aligned values they have them drawn in as lifetime customers

Core Cultural Beliefs and Secondary Beliefs

Core Beliefs: Values that are passed on through generations of families and are reinforced through social institutions (religion)

Secondary Beliefs: Values open to change

Natural Environment

Consumers have environmental concerns and focus on greener products, corporate sustainability and other environmental issues

Technological Environment

anything can be created these days and time between idea and implementation is shrinking due to this

Political-Legal Environment

Consists of laws, government agencies, and pressure groups that influence organisations (soetimes creates new buisness oppurtunities)

• Used to protect customers and companies to act transparently and safely

Marketing Research

links the public to the marketer through information

• it tries to identify an answer to a specific problem

Marketing insights

conclusions made from research to make decisions

• they provide diagnostic information about how and why we observe certain effects in the marketplace and what it means to marketers

Which three types of firms do marketing research

Syndicated-Service, Customer marketing, Specialty line marketing research firms

these are external firms that gather information about consumers/competitor trends to help buisnesses make informed decisions

Syndicated Service Research Firms:

gather consumer trade information, which they sell for a fee

Customer marketing research firms

carry out specific projects

Specialty-line marketing research firms

provide specialised research services (like field interviewing)

Marketing Research (Six Steps)

1. Identifying the Problem and Research Objectives

2. Developing Research Plan

3. Collect Information

4. Analyse the Information

5. Present the Findings

6. Make the Decision

1. Identifying the Problem and Research Objectives

• dont identify the problem to broad or narrow and create specific research objectives

Explanatory and Descriptive Research

Explanatory: goal is to identify the problem and suggest possible solutions

Descriptive: seeks to quantify demand

2. Develop the Research Plan

Used to gather information and discover hoe much it will cost

• Done through Collecting Data Sources through research approaches, instruments, sampling plans and contact methods

Research Approaches

Observations, Focus Groups, Survey Research and Behavioural Research

Research Instruments

Used to collect primary data

• Questionnaires (explanatory research)

• Qualitative Measures (used because marketers think consumers actions dont always match their answers to surveys)

• Technological Devices

Sampling Plan

Sampling Unit, Size and Procedure

Contact Methods

Mail Contacts, Telephone contacts, Personal Contacts, Online Contacts

Step 3: Collect Information

• most expensive and error prone step as individuals may not respond and their may be inconsistency in research types internationally

4. Analysing the Information

• Extract findings and develop summaries (test different hypothesis and test strength of conclusions)

5. Present the Findings

translate data and information into insights and recommendations

Step 6. Make a Decision

• Use marketing decision support systems to help marketing managers to make better decisions

How to Measure Marketing Productivity

• Used to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing activities

Marketing mix-model and marketing metrics

Marketing Metrics

measurable values that show how well a companies marketing activites perform

• Measure into ST results and change brand equity

Marketing Mix Model

estimate causal relationships and measures how marketing activity affects outcomes

Marketing Dashboards

a visual overview that brings multiple marketing metrics together using graphs and tables