Market Research: Types of Data Mr. Singh

What is Market Research? Market research is the collection, analysis, and interpretation of information used to develop a marketing strategy or to solve a marketing problem This research provides hard data (information based on supportable fact)

What isn’t Market Research? Mr. Singh asks a few friends what they think of his new Jordan’s Not systematic (not in an organized way) Minimal analysis Very limited amount of data Mr. Singh has made an intuitive decision A decision based on feelings and prior knowledge, made automatically and instinctively

Who does Market Research? Marketing research firms are hired to collect, analyze, and interpret the data that is relevant to a specific business’s marketing effort These companies work with two types of information: Secondary data Primary data

Primary & Secondary Data Primary Data Unanalyzed, current information collected by a researcher for a specific purpose Secondary Data Information collected and published by others Secondary Research: searching for secondary data, then analyzing and interpreting it

Sources of Secondary Data Books Periodicals Indexes Databases Internet Consultants Market Research Professionals

Books

Periodicals Magazines Newspapers Journals Reports These are all examples of periodicals

Indexes and Databases Indexes – Articles published about a specific topic over a particular period of time Databases – List of information organized by category CanCorp provides financial and management information extracted from the corporate documents of over 13,000 Canadian companies http://www.lib.uwo.ca/business/cancorpdesc.html

Internet Search Engines Listserv - An e-mail list that sends information to all the people who subscribe

Consultants Experts or consultants provide secondary data to businesses Most consultants cost money, but some departments in the government and financial institutions are free Marketing – Research Professionals - they sell data they have gathered on specific markets Example: Netflix

Test Marketing Companies produce a limited quantity of the product and introduce test markets (Apple) Ontario is a popular location for test markets because its demographic profile is a typical Canadian city Test Markets are used for soup, toothpaste, cereal, and even movies Normally the test market is kept a secret to make sure consumers are performing as normal

Primary Data Two types of primary data: Qualitative Research – used to measure people’s reaction, responses, or feelings toward a given subject or problem Examples – Blind taste tests, Opinion polls Quantitative Research – involves collecting data by surveying a representative sample of a target market population Examples – Test Marketing, internal information sources, surveys, observation, etc

Internal Information Sources Companies can look at their own data Sales records provide data about the popularity of products Advertising and Promotional records contain data about how successful an specific advertisement was, or coupon, contests, sampling etc. Production records show peak ordering periods and downtimes

Surveys Carefully planned questions that are used to gather data Surveys can be done over the phone, in person, through mail or on the internet Closed-ended questions – people have to select one answer from choices (multiple choice) Open-ended questions – people can write an answer and express their opinions Which one is normally used? Easier to analyze?

Focus-Group Interviews A small group of people brought together to discuss a particular product or problem This method combines features of an interview with observation Example: A marketer of a new video game- game could put 14-18 year old males who own a video-game system

Observation Collecting information by recording the actions of a person being observed without interacting or communicating with that person You want to see how people behave This method can be more accurate and less biased than surveys This method tends to be more expensive

In class activity Using one of the strategies discussed in class, gather primary data for something you’re interested in? Also, gather secondary data for thing you’re interested in Mr. Singh will be around to check