Chapter 4: Managing Marketing Information to Gain Customer Insights

Objective 4-1 Explain the importance of information in gaining insights about the marketplace and customers. Objective 4-2 Define the marketing information ecosystem and discuss its parts. Objective 4-3 Outline the role of marketing research and the steps in the marketing research process. Objective 4-4 Explain how companies analyze and use marketing information. Objective 4-5 Discuss the special issues some marketing researchers face, including public policy and ethics issues.

Big data

The huge and complex data sets generated by today’s sophisticated information generation, collection, storage, and analysis technologies. [4.1]

Customer insights

Deep understandings of customers’ stated and unstated needs and wants that become the basis for creating enduring customer value, engagement, and relationships. [4.1]

Marketing information ecosystem (MIE)

People, processes, and assets dedicated to assessing managers’ information needs, developing the needed information, and helping managers and decision makers apply that information to generate and validate actionable customer and market insights. [4.1]

Competitive marketing intelligence

The systematic monitoring, collection, and analysis of available information about competitors and developments in the marketing environment. [4.2]

Internal databases

Collections of consumer and market information obtained from data sources within the company network. [4.2]

Behavioral targeting

Using online consumer tracking data and analytics to target advertisements and marketing offers to specific consumers.[4.3]

Causal research

Marketing research to test hypotheses about cause-and-effect relationships. [4.3]

Customer insight community

An ongoing online company panel or community of engaged consumers who provide input and take part in research projects over time. [4.3]

Descriptive research

Marketing research to better describe market and consumer characteristics, such as the market potential for a product or the demographics and attitudes of consumers who buy the product. [4.3]

Digital text analysis

Using artificial intelligence–driven automated analysis to gain insights from large volumes of text data that are posted by customers on social media, internet forums, company websites, and other digital platforms. [4.3]

Ethnographic research

A form of observational research that involves sending observers to watch consumers—usually unobtrusively—in their “natural environments” as they go about their daily lives. [4.3]

Experimental research

Gathering primary data by selecting matched groups of participants, giving them different treatments, controlling unrelated factors, and checking for differences in group responses. [4.3]

Exploratory research

Marketing research to gather preliminary information that will help further define the research problems and suggest hypotheses. [4.3]

Focus groups

A focus group involves inviting a small, carefully chosen group of people to meet with a trained moderator to discuss and exchange views about a product, service, or organization. The moderator keeps the discussion “focused” on important issues. [4.3]

Interviews

Gathering primary data by engaging participants in one-on-one, semistructured, but open-ended conversations that can reveal deep or unexpected insights. [4.3]

Marketing research

The systematic design and execution of initiatives to collect, analyze, and report data, information, and insights relevant to a specific marketing situation facing an organization. [4.3]

Observational research

Gathering primary data by observing relevant people, actions, and situations. [4.3]

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. [4.3]

Online marketing survey research

Collecting primary marketing research data through internet and mobile surveys, online focus groups, and online panels and brand communities. [4.3]

Primary data

Information collected for the specific purpose at hand. [4.3]

Sample

A fraction of the population selected for marketing research to represent the population as a whole. [4.3]

Secondary data

Information that already exists somewhere, having been collected for another purpose. [4.3]

Survey and questionnaire research

Gathering primary data by asking people questions about their knowledge, attitudes, preferences, and buying behavior. [4.3]

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Technology by which machines think and learn in a way that looks and feels human but with a lot more analytical capacity. [4.4]

Customer relationship management (CRM)

The overall process of building and maintaining profitable customer relationships by delivering superior customer value and satisfaction. Managing detailed information about individual customers and using that information to carefully manage customer touch points to maximize customer loyalty. [4.4]

Marketing analytics

The analysis tools, technologies, and processes by which marketers dig out meaningful patterns in big data to gain customer insights, gauge marketing performance, and improve the customer experience. [4.4]