Reading 1.1.

Roles of information for marketing decisions making

Consumer insight is a term that implies a depth of understanding of consumers. More than
that, it implies sensible use of this understanding - to help consumers fulfil their needs. It
also implies wisdom – organizations using understanding so that their position is as they
want it to be, e.g. meeting customer or stakeholder needs, profitable, within budget, secure,
or ethical.
A marketing information system is a continuing and interacting structure of people,
equipment, and procedures to gather, sort, analyse, evaluate, and distribute pertinent, timely
and accurate information for use by marketing decision makers to improve their marketing
planning, implementation, and control. The marketing information system primarily serves
the company’s marketing and other managers. However, it may also provide information to
external partners, such as suppliers, resellers, or marketing services agencies.
A good marketing information system balances the information users would like to have
against what they really need and what is feasible to offer. Some managers will ask for
whatever information they can get without thinking carefully about what they really need.
And in this age of big data, some managers will want to collect and store vast amounts of
digital data simply because technology lets them. But too much information can be as
harmful as too little. In contrast, other managers may omit things they ought to know, or
they may not know to ask for some types of information they should have. The marketing
information system must monitor the marketing environment to provide decision makers
with information and insights they should have to make key marketing decisions. It means
that, MIS are formed by marketing research.
Finally, the costs of obtaining, analyzing, storing, and delivering information can mount
quickly. The company must decide whether the value of insights gained from additional
information is worth the costs of providing it, and both value and cost are often hard to
assess.
Marketers can obtain the needed information from internal data, competitive marketing
intelligence, and marketing research. Many companies build extensive internal databases,
collections of consumer and market information obtained from data sources within the
company’s network. Information in an internal database can come from many sources. The
marketing department furnishes information on customer characteristics, in-store and online
sales transactions, and web and social media site visits. The customer service department
keeps records of customer satisfaction or service problems. The accounting department
provides detailed records of sales, costs, and cash flows. Operations reports on production,
shipments, and inventories. The sales force reports on reseller reactions and competitor
activities, and marketing channel partners provide data on sales transactions. Harnessing
such information can provide powerful customer insights and competitive advantage.
 Internal databases usually can be accessed more quickly and cheaply than other information
sources, but they also present some problems. Because internal information is often
collected for other purposes, it may be incomplete or in the wrong form for making
marketing decisions. Data also age quickly; keeping the database current requires a major
effort. Finally, managing and mining the mountains of information that a large company
produces require highly sophisticated equipment and techniques.
Competitive marketing intelligence is the systematic monitoring, collection, and analysis of
publicly available information about consumers, competitors, and developments in the
marketplace. The goal of competitive marketing intelligence is to improve strategic
decision making by understanding the consumer environment, assessing and tracking
competitors’ actions, and providing early warnings of opportunities and threats. Marketing
intelligence techniques range from observing consumers firsthand to quizzing the
company’s own employees, benchmarking competitors’ products, online research, and
monitoring social media buzz. Good marketing intelligence can help marketers gain
insights into how consumers talk about and engage with their brands. Firms use competitive
marketing intelligence to gain early insights into competitor moves and strategies and to
prepare quick responses.
In addition to marketing intelligence information about general consumer, competitor, and
marketplace happenings, marketers often need formal studies that provide customer and
market insights for specific marketing situations and decisions. In such situations, managers
will need marketing research.
Marketing research is the systematic design, collection, analysis, and reporting of data
relevant to a specific marketing situation facing an organization. Companies use marketing
research in a wide variety of situations. For example, marketing research gives marketers
insights into customer motivations, purchase behavior, and satisfaction. It can help them to
assess market potential and market share or measure the effectiveness of pricing, product,
distribution, and promotion activities. Some large companies have their own research
departments that work with marketing managers on marketing research projects. In
addition, these companies—like their smaller counterparts—frequently hire outside
research specialists to consult with management on specific marketing problems and to
conduct marketing research studies. Sometimes firms simply purchase data collected by
outside firms to aid in their decision making.
Kotle & Amstrong, 2018

4.1 Multiple choice questions (10 questions, not the ones already available in the course
materials)
No Questions Choices
1 Market research is an organized effort to A. Market, Consumer
gather information about ___or___.
B. Market, Marketing
C. Mind, Media
D. Marketing, Behavior
2 Qualitative information can only be ___. A. Observed
B. Seen
C. Felt
D. Experienced
3 In a market research report, each ___ must A. Introduction
have the support of the conclusion.
B. Finding
C. Recommendation
D. Table of Contents
4 The first step in the marketing research A. Collecting data
process is ___. B. Defining the objective
C. Defining the solution
D. Defining the problem
5 ___ seeks out the “why”, not the “how” of A. Quantitative research
its topic through the analysis of
B. Qualitative research
unstructured information.
C. Protocol analysis
D. Depth Interview
6 ___ conversion of data into a form that can A. Data Collection
be processed by computer.
B. Data Analysis
C. Data Processing
D. Data Filtering
7 ___, the numeric value separating the A. Mean
higher half of a sample, population, or
B. Middle
probability distribution, from the lower
C. Between
half.
D. Median
8 ___ research explores the effect of one A. Casual
variable on another.
B. Exploratory
 C. Qualitative
D. Quantitative
9 ___ is a set of procedures and methods for A. D.S.S.
the regular, planned collection, analysis, B. M.I.S.
C. D.I.S.
and presentation of information for use in
D. M.D.D.S.
marketing decisions.
10 ___ usually can be accessed more quickly A. Internal database
and cheaply than other information sources,
B. External database
but they also present some problems
C. M.I.S
D. D.I.S

Ex 1.3. Gap-fill. Fill in the blank with one suitable word from the box.
value 1 customer insights Relationships Need9 marketing information
5 2 system 4
Competitive6 Insights 3 Differentiate7 Motives8 Marketing research 10
To create (1) __________ for customers and build meaningful (2) __________ with
them, marketers must first gain fresh, deep (3) __________ into what customers need
and want. Such customer insights come from good (4) __________. Companies use these
(5) __________ to develop a (6) ______________ advantage. For example, when it
began six years ago, social media site Pinterest needed to (7) __________ itself from the
dozens, even hundreds, of existing social networking options.
Although customer and market insights are important for building customer value and
engagement, these insights can be very difficult to obtain. Customer needs and buying
(8) __________ are often anything but obvious—consumers themselves usually can’t
tell you exactly what they (9) __________ and why they buy. To gain good customer
insights, marketers must effectively manage marketing information from a wide range of
sources. (10) __________ must be taken into place to have good information for making
marketing decision.

Ex 2.3. Gap-fill. Fill in the blank with one suitable word from the box (some words can
be reuse).
questionnaire close-end open-end question tabulate
logical process insight
causal
population secondary representative problem
objectives exploratory descriptive
1. A sample is a segment of the ____________ selected for marketing research to
represent the population as a whole.
2. ____________questions include all the possible answers, and subjects make choices
among them.
3. Closed-ended questions, provide answers that are easier to interpret and
____________.
4. Normally, the hardest step in the research process is defining the (a)____________
and research (b)____________ .
5. ____________ allow respondents to answer in their own words.
6. ____________ are useful in exploratory research.
7. ____________ are very flexible—there are many ways to ask questions.
8. Questions should be arranged in a ____________ order.
9. Researchers must ____________ and analyze the collected data to bring valuable to
marketing manager.
10. Researchers should start by gathering ____________ data.
11. Simple, direct, and unbiased wording are requirement in designing
______________.
12. The ____________ research is to describe things, such as the market potential for a
product or the attitudes of consumers who buy the product.
13. The sample should be ____________ so that the researcher can make accurate
estimates of the thoughts and behaviors of the larger population.
14. To gather preliminary information that will help define the problem and suggest
hypotheses, the researcher should make the ____________ research.
15. To test hypotheses about cause-and-effect relationships, the research can be
classified into ____________ research.