Chapter 3: Capturing Marketing Insights and Forecasting Demand

• The Marketing Information System and Marketing Intelligence
  • 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.
• Internal Records and Database Systems
  • The Order-to-Payment Cycle- The heart of the internal records system is the order-to-payment cycle. Sales representatives, dealers, and customers send orders to the firm.
  • Sales Information Systems- Marketing  managers need  timely  and  accurate reports on cu r­ rent sales
  • Databases, Data Warehousing, and Data Mining
    • Database marketing- is the process of building, maintaining, and using customer databases and other databases (products, suppliers, resellers) to con tact, transact with, and build relationships with customers.
    • Data warehouse- where marketers can capture, query, and analyze data to draw inferences about individual customers' needs and responses.
    • Data mining- to extract from the mass of data useful insights about customer behavior, trends, and segments.
    • Behavioral targeting- tracks  customers’' online  behavior  for  marketing purposes allows advertisers to better  target  online  ads-but some  consumers object  to the practice
• Marketing Intelligence
  • A marketing intelligence system is a set of procedures and sources that managers use to obtain everyday information about developments in the marketing environment

The Marketing Research System

• The Marketing Research Process

• Step 1: Define the Problem, Decision Alternatives, and Research Objectives- Marketing managers must not define the problem too broadly or too narrowly for the marketing researcher.  
• Step 2: Develop the Research Plan- to design a research plan, marketing managers need to make decisions about the data sources, research approaches, research instruments, sampling plan, and contact methods.
  • Data Sources

• Primary data
• Secondary data

• Research Approaches

• Observational research
• Focus group research
• Survey research
• Behavioral data
• Experimental research

• Research  Instruments
• Marketing researchers use three main  research instruments in collecting primary  data:
• Questionnaires
• Qualitative measures
• Technological devices

 

• Sampling Plan

• Sampling unit: Whom should we survey?
• Sampling unit: How many people should we survey?
• Sampling procedure: How should we choose the respondents?

 

• Step 3: Collect the Data- The data collection phase of marketing research is generally the most expensive and error-prone.
• Step 4: Analyze the Information- The next step in the process is to extract findings by tabulating the data and developing summary measures.
• Step 5: Present the Findings- Now the researcher presents the findings
• Step 6: Make the Decision

The Measures of Market Demand

• There  are many productive ways to break down  the market:
• The potential market is the set of consumers with a sufficient level of interest in a market offer. However, their interest is not enough to define a market unless they also have sufficient income and access to the product.
• The available market is the set of consumers who have interest, income, and access to a particular offer. Eligible adults constitute the qualified available market-the set of consumers who have interest, income, access, and qualifications for the market offer.
• The target market is the part of the qualified available market the company decides to pursue.
• The penetrated market is the set of consumers who are buying the company's product.