Chapter4

Managing Marketing Information to Gain Customer Insights

Learning Objectives

  • Importance of Market Information (LO1)

    • Understand customer and marketplace insights.

    • Identify difficulties in obtaining market information.

    • Explore Big Data: opportunities and challenges.

    • Embrace the mantra: "Better not more."

  • Developing and Using Market Information Ecosystems (MIE) (LO2)

    • Grasp the concept of a Market Information Ecosystem.

    • Recognize the importance of gathering, sorting, analyzing, evaluating, and distributing timely and accurate information for decision-making.

  • Developing MIE Information (LO3)

    • Identify steps and techniques to develop marketing information.

  • Analyzing Marketing Information (LO4)

    • Understand how to analyze and utilize marketing information effectively.

  • Steps in the Market Research Process (LO4)

    • Learn detailed steps involved in conducting market research.

Importance of Market Information (LO1)

  • Customer and Marketplace Insights

    • Understand how market information drives insight into consumer behavior and marketplace trends.

  • Difficulties in Acquiring Information

    • Recognize challenges faced in collecting market data.

  • Big Data

    • Opportunities: Potential for improved insight and decision-making using data.

    • Challenges: Handling and interpreting vast amounts of data effectively.

  • "Better not more"

    • Focus on the quality of data rather than the quantity.

  • Customer Insights: Deep understandings of customers stated and unstated needs and wants that become the basis for creating enduring customer value, engagements, and relationships

    • Customer insight teams: developing actionable insights from marketing data and working with marketing managers to apply those insights

Marketing Information Ecosystems (LO2)

  • Definition of a Marketing Information Ecosystem (MIE)

    • A system comprising people, equipment, and procedures aimed at collecting, processing, analyzing, and distributing necessary information to marketing decision-makers.

A figure presents the marketing information system.

  • Components of MIE

    • People: Marketing managers and other information users.

    • Equipment: Tools for data collection and analysis.

    • Procedures: Methods for sorting and disseminating information.

Developing Necessary Information (LO3)

Steps in Developing Information

  1. Assess Information Needs

    • Identify user needs and wants specific to information.

  2. Information sources:

    • Internal Databases: Collections of consumer and market info obtained from data sources within the company network

    • Goal: let managers access the data they seek without having to look around everywhere

    Data we have

    • sales data

    • inventory


      • Target Markets

      • Marketing Channels

      • Environmental Scanning

    • Collecting data through:

      • Primary Research (original data collection)

      • Secondary Research (analyzing existing data)

  3. Marketing/ competitive intelligence

    • Marketplace Data: Gather data on macro factors affecting the market.

    • Competitive Intelligence: Monitor competitors to understand their strategies and performance.

      • Helps marketers gain insights into how consumers talk about and engage with brands

      • state of art social media command centers

    • Observation and Activity Monitoring: Collect insights on consumer behavior through direct observation.

      • ethical concerns

    • Internal non-data sources

      • employees

  4. Publicly available external sources

    1. government, census

    2. self protection

Analyzing and Using Information (LO4)

  • Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

    • Importance of integrating multiple information sources to enhance customer relationships.

    • Use of Touchpoints

      • Identifying every consumer interaction point to gather insights and feedback.


  • Big Data, Analytics, and AI

    • Analytics: Refers to tools, technologies, and processes used to analyze data effectively.

    • AI (Artificial Intelligence): Simulation of human intelligence to improve decision-making processes.

    • Technology vs. Relationship: Balancing data-driven insights with maintaining human connections.

Marketing Research (LO5)

  • Marketing Research:

    • A systematic process involving the design, collection, analysis, and reporting of data relevant to marketing situations faced by organizations.

      • companies hire outside research companies to consult with management on specific marketing problems and to construct marketing research studies

      • just in time research: fast and agile marketing info + research

      • key is to blend approaches into unified MIE that yields deep and comprehensive MI and insights

Process of Marketing Research

  1. Define Problem/Objectives

    • Clearly state the problem to address its essence.

    • Quote: "A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved."

    • Exploratory Research: Gather preliminary info to help further define the research problems and suggest hypotheses

    • Descriptive Research: better describe market and consumer characteristics, such as market potential for a product or the demographics and the attitudes of consumers who buy the product

    • Casual Research: Test hypotheses about cause and effect relationship

  2. Develop Research Plan

    • Identify specific information needs.

    • Presented in a written proposal: clarifies the expectations of various stakeholders

    • Distinguish between data types:

      • Primary Data: Information collected for a specific research purpose.

      • Observational Research:

      Research Approach

      Brief description

      Observational research

      Gathering deep insights by carefully observing consumers’ relevant actions and activities.

      Surveys and questionnaires

      Gathering information about consumer knowledge, attitudes, preferences, and buying behavior by asking a targeted set of respondents a pre-selected set of questions.

      Interviews

      Gaining insights from targeted participants by engaging them in one-on-one conversations.

      Focus groups

      Inviting small, carefully selected groups of people to meet with a trained moderator for focused discussions about a product, service, or organization to gain subtle and interesting insights.

      Customer insight communities

      Creating a panel of customers—usually hosted online—that provides the company with insights and feedback on an ongoing basis.

      Experimental research

      Subjecting two or more matched groups of randomly chosen customers to different marketing stimuli and learning which stimuli are most effective by comparing the resulting behaviors across the groups.

      Digital text analysis

      Using artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to automatically and continuously analyze the huge amounts of text data posted by consumers on social media, internet forums, company websites, and other digital platforms.

      Digital, mechanical, and biosensors

      Using smart digital and mechanical sensors to monitor consumer behavior and market developments.

      Online tracking and targeting

      Monitoring consumers by actively mining the rich veins of unsolicited,

      Ethnographic Research

      A form of observational research that involves sending observers to watch consumers- usually unobtrusively in their natural environment

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  • Secondary Data: Existing information collected for other purposes.

    • Commercial online databases: to conduct their own searches of secondary purposes

    • Internal search engines: can help but also be inefficient

    • must be relevant: fits the research projects needs

    • accurate: reliably collected and reported

    • impartial: objectively reported/ collect

    • current: up to date

  • Advantages : Quick, low cost.

  • Disadvantages: May not be current or always available.

Neuromarketing techniques can measure consumer involvement and emotional responses second by second, usually used in combination with other approaches

Online tracking and targeting: listening and watching consumers through info already around the internet

  • make use of online info, what sites consumers go to, age, gender, etc.

Behavioral targeting: Using online consumer tracking data and analytics to target advertisements and marketing offers to specific consumers

Contact methods: primary data through interviews surveys etc

  • Mail, telephone, personal interviewing: used to collect large amounts of info at low cost, not flexible, time consuming, garner low responses

    • Telephone interviews: more flexible than mail questionares but can introduce bias, declined in recent years

    • Personal interviewing: costly, guides interviews, explain questions, explore issues as the situation requires

      • Individual interviewing:

      • Group interviewing

  • Online marketing survey: Collecting primary research trhough internet and mobile surveys, online focus groups, and online panels and brand communites

  • Sampling plan: A fraction of population selected for marketing research to represent the population as a whole

    • 1: who is studied (what sampling unit?)

    • 2: sample size

    • sampling procedure

      • nonporbability samples (cannot be meausred)

Types of Samples

Probability samples

Simple random sample

Every member of population has a known and equal chance of selction

Stratified random sample

pop divided into mutually exclusive groups and random samples are drawn from each group

Cluster (area sample)

Pop divided into mutually exclusive but similar groups and the researcher draws a sample of the groups for interview

Nonprobability samples

Convivence sample

selects the easiest population members to obtain info BIAS

Judgement sample

researcher uses their judgement to select population that would be good prospects

Quota sample

researcher finds and interviews a prescribed number of people in each of several categories/ segmetns


  1. Implement Research Plan

  • Conduct data collection and ensure thorough checks.

  • Process and analyze the collected data.

  1. Interpret and Report Findings

  • Reporting should be unbiased and contextualized within the marketing environment.

  1. Analyzing and using Market info

    1. Customer relationship management: managing detailed info about individual customers and using that info to carefully amange customer touch points to maximize customer loyalty

      1. enhance customer sevice, develop a deeper customer relationships, cross sell products, customize offerings, pinpoint and target high value customers

    2. Marketing analytics: analysis tools, tech, and processes by which marketers dig out meaningful patterns in big data to gain customer insights, gauge marketing performance, and improve the customer experience

    3. AI

    4. International research

      1. cultural differences causes problems, translating

Ethical issues

these challenges can impact the effectiveness of AI deployments across diverse regions. It's crucial to address these concerns through collaborative efforts and inclusive methodologies.

Questionnaire Design Guidelines

  • Avoid Leading Questions

  • Avoid Double-Barreled Questions

  • Ensure Clarity of Questions

  • Use Consumer-Friendly Language

  • Respondent Ability and Willingness

  • Proper Sequencing of Questions

  • Proofreading and Testing of the questionnaire before deployment.

Case Competition Research

  • Define the Problem

  • Identify Subject of Research

  • Determine Information Needed

  • Develop the Research Plan:

    • Include exploratory, descriptive approaches where necessary.

    • Gather secondary data from libraries, and develop primary research approaches.

    • Define sampling methods and contact techniques.

  • Implement Plan and Report Findings

    • Use visual elements such as charts and graphs for clarity in presentations.

    • Provide supplemental materials including a summary of results and research questions.

Questions?

  • Open forum for inquiries to clarify understanding of material and discussion points.