Marketing Information System

Introduction: It is becoming increasingly important to record and analyze the customer

data to maintain with the changing needs of the Businesses.
Marketing Information System: It is formally gathering, storing, analyzing the
marketing information to marketing managers at regular interval on planned basis. It
consists of four elements:
Internal Continuous Data: It is financial data like profitability of product, the customer
or the distribution channel nto aform more usable by the marketing department. While the
external continuous data includes the TV audience monitoring and purchase pattern data
collection.
Internal Ad-Hoc Data: This is the data of customer transactions and the costs associated
with it used for a specific purpose. External AD-HOC Data is surveys of the customers.
Environmental scanning: This is the analysis of economic, social, legal, technological
forces.
Marketing Research: It is considered as information about markets and reactions to all
the marketing mix actions.
Marketing Research Approaches: There are four ways in which we conduct Marketing
Research:
By Market Research Department itself: This can be done by marketing department
staff of the company.
By the Marketing Research Department: This can be done by the research executives
specially hired.
Fieldwork by an Agency: There can be an agency doing market research.
Types of Marketing Research:
Ad- Hoc Research: This research is when the survey data is collected only once in time
from a specific place. It finds the solution, fills out the questionnaire to a certain problem.
Continuous research interview: In this the same respondents are interviewed
repeatedly. There can be the following:
Consumer Panels: It is when a large number of households can be recruited for getting
information about the purchase over time.
Retail Audits: These audits of sales of a particular brand can be conducted by conducting
laser scans of the barcodes in the stores.
TV Viewer ship Panel: This is when you study the audience size of the commercial or
the program.
Stages in the Marketing Research Process:
Initial Contact: It is a phase of initial realization that we need to find a solution to
certain problem by using various resources.
Research Brief: In this in a meeting, the client explains the marketing problem and the
research objectives.
And, a good research is when;
 Terms like market share, market, competitors are well defined.
 Allocating the best people the favorite areas.
 Brief more research agencies to get diverse view points on the research problems.
Research Proposal: The proposal defines the promises (to do’s) of the marketing
research agency for its client and how much it will cost. Vagueness should be avoided in
the proposal. The research proposal should define the problem and the approach to the
defined problem clearly. It should define the method of collecting data, sampling plan
and plan for data analysis.
Types of Research Methods:
Exploratory Research: It is the exploration of the research area prior to data collection
after the acceptance of proposal by the client. This is the study of the type of people to be
interviewed for the research.
Secondary Research: This is the data collected by the people not for the purpose of the
main research for example any other research carried by the company in the past or
sources like government, trade association, magazine , newspaper etc.
Qualitative Research: There is a group assigned called focus group in which there is a
moderator (often a psychologist) and a group of consumer for a formal discussion over a
research being conducted and the data is interpreted by the experts.
Depth Interviews: It involves interviewing consumer one or two hours about a topic and
analysis is done.
Consultation with the experts: For information and insights some other people are
interviewed who are not the direct target market.
Observation: It is observing a consumer behavior over time.
Descriptive Research: It is when we describe something like customer belief, attitude
and re-call of an advertisement.
Experimental Research: This can be done by money-off sampling causing effect on sales
at random.
The Main Data Collection Stage:
Sampling Process: It aims on deciding how many people should be interviewed for the
research data collection.
Sample Size: Including all the groups to be surveyed what should be the sample size or
the number of respondents to be surveyed for the representative sample.
Sample Selection: It can be done after sample size is defined and to determine how the
sample would be selected for response. This can also use the probability method like:
Simple Random Sampling: Each individual is given a number and an equal random
chance to get selected.
Stratified Random Sampling: The entire population is broken down in the demographic
factors and given a random sampling.
Cluster Sampling: The population is divided into clusters and then done with interviews
like cluster of residential blocks.
There can be non-probability methods as well:
Convenience Sample: The most easily available sample from the population and samples
them.
Judgment Sample: The judgment is used for selecting the population i.e. attaining the
most relevant probable answer or information from the population.
Quota Sampling: The population is divided into a quota like males to females or some
factors like age, gender and then analyzed.
Survey Methods: The methods can be following:
 Face to Face Interviews.
 Telephonic Interviews.
 Mail Surveys.
Questionnaire Design: The design pattern should be simple to understand and the
respondants should be able to give answer to them.
The Design Stage: The designing should have the following:
Ordering of the Topics: The topics should be simple.
Type of questions: There can be close ended or open ended questions.
Wording: It should be simple, asking only one simple question at a time.
Layout: The layout shouldn’t be mixing up.
Scaling: It is to scale the beliefs and attitudes like strongly agree or disagree questions.
Probes and Prompts: It is clarifications and responses.
Pilot Stage: The pilot stage is the feasibility analysis of the questionnaire its cost and
other reliability factors of the questionnaire and the second pilot may rectify it i.e. the
doubts and the errors can be rectified.
Data Analysis and Interpretation: It includes the following:
 Preparation
 Software analysis using means, standard deviations, frequency tables, percentages
etc.
Report Writing and Presentation:
It should always have the following:
 Title Page
 List of Contents
 Preface (brief; outline brief)
 Executive Summary
 Details about the previous research
 Research Methods Used
 Research Findings
 Conclusions of the Study
 Appendices (all the rest of findings, including content).