Capitulo 7 Improving Decisions

with Marketing Information

Equipo 2
Aguilar de la Cruz Jesus Gabriel
Franco Bañuelos Michelle
Rodriguez Perez Cindy Karolina
Hernandez Contreras Mónica Ilen
Miranda Carrizalez Diego Andree
 Effective Marketing Requires Good
Information
Marketing managers
have questions
Marketing managers look to marketing research to
help answer at least four types of questions.
They are often interested in knowing what value a
marketing mix can deliver and to whom?
They need to know which measures matter? +
A third category of questions follows from the
question—what works?
Finally, marketing managers often want to know
what if?
Information is a bridge
to the market
In this chapter, we’ll focus on the two resources that
marketing managers utilize for information to help
them answer these questions.
Marketing research—procedures that develop
and analyze new information about a market.
Marketing information system (MIS)—which is an
organized way of continually gathering, accessing,
and analyzing information that marketing
managers need to make ongoing decisions.
 Big companies turn to
marketing research
specialists
Most large companies have a separate marketing
research department to plan and manage research
projects. People in these departments usually rely on
outside specialists to carry out the work on particular
projects. Further, they may call in specialized
marketing consultants and marketing research
organizations to take charge of a whole project.
Smaller companies usually don’t have separate
marketing research departments. They depend on
their salespeople or managers to conduct what
research they do.
IT and marketing cooperate
to create an MIS
When it comes to setting up an MIS, a company usually turns to
information technology (IT) experts. Sometimes this expertise
resides in an organization’s IT department. Even small firms may
have a person who handles most of the technical work on its
computer systems.

Whether these activities are conducted inside the company or

are outsourced, it is very important that marketing managers
be closely involved in the design of marketing research or an MIS.
Specialists in research and IT can make sure that the technical
aspects are handled correctly, but marketing managers need to
make sure they can access information to guide marketing
strategy planning or implementation and control.
Changes Are Under
Way in Marketing
Information
Systems
Marketing managers with ready Many firms realize that it doesn’t pay to
access to appropriate and timely wait until you have important questions you
information make better marketing can’t answer. They anticipate the
strategy decisions. Modern MIS information they will need. They work to
practices, especially collecting data on develop a continual flow of information that
individual customers, raise important is available and quickly accessible from an
legal and ethical questions about MIS when it’s needed.
customers’ privacy, which we discuss in
detail at the end of this section. An MIS makes
information available
and accessible
 The Scientific Method
and Marketing Research
Marketing research is guided by the
scientific method, a decision-making
approach that focuses on being
objective and orderly in testing ideas
before accepting them.

With this approach, decisions are

based on evidence, not just hunches.
 Five-Step Approach to
Marketing Research

Effective research usually

requires cooperation
Marketing managers must be able to
explain what their problems are and what
kinds of information they need. They 2
should be able to communicate with
specialists in the specialists’ language.
 Step 1: Defining the Problem
The first step in the research process is defining the problem or
reason for the research. Defining the problem is often the most
difficult step in the marketing research process, but it’s important
for the objectives of the research to be clearly defined. The best
research job on the wrong problem is wasted effort.

Our strategy planning framework is useful for guiding the problem

definition step. It can help the researcher identify the real problem
area and what information is needed.
Setting research objectives may require more
understanding
A manager must narrow the
research objectives. One good way
is to develop a list of research
questions that includes all possible
problem areas. Then the manager
can consider the items on the list
more completely—in the situation
analysis step— before narrowing
down to final research objectives.
Step 2: Analyzing the Situation
What information do we already have?

When the marketing manager thinks

the real problem has begun to surface,
a situation analysis is useful. A
situation analysis is an informal study
of what information is already
available in the problem area. It can
help define the problem and specify
what additional information, if any, is
needed.
 Situation analysis helps educate a researcher
The situation analysis is especially important if the
marketing manager is dealing with unfamiliar areas or
if the researcher is a specialist who doesn’t know much
about the management decisions to be made. They
both must be sure they understand the problem area—
including the nature of the target market, the
marketing mix, competition, and other external
factors.

A marketing manager at the home office of a large

retail chain hired a research firm to do in-store
interviews to learn what customers liked most and
least about some of its stores in other cities.
Interviewers diligently filled out their questionnaires.
Secondary data may provide the answers—or some
background
The situation analysis should also
find relevant secondary data—
information that has been collected
or published already. Later, in Step
3, we will cover primary data—
information specifically collected to
solve a current problem. Too often
researchers rush to gather primary
data when much relevant
secondary information is already
available—at little or no cost
 Secondary data are often readily available
Secondary data are often readily available
from the firm’s MIS. Secondary data in the
MIS may also include routinely collected
external data or the big data discussed
earlier in this chapter. So, for example, a
company’s routine monitoring of the
number of “hits” a web page receives and
what search terms were used to find the
web page should already be in the MIS. Data
that have not been organized in an MIS may
be available from the company’s files and
reports
Government data are inexpensive

Federal and state governments publish

data on many subjects. Government data
are often useful in estimating the size of
markets. In Chapters 3 and 5, we gave a
number of examples of the different
types of data available. Almost all
government data are immediately
available in inexpensive print and digital
publications, on websites, and in
downloads ready for further analysis.
Step 3: Getting Problem-Specific
Data
Gathering primary data
There are different methods to collect primary data.
The approach to use depends on the nature of the problem and how
much time and money you have available.
The researcher tries to find out what clients think about a topic or
how they behave under certain conditions.
There are two basic methods for obtaining information about
customers: asking and observing.
The questioning can be qualitative or quantitative.
 Qualitative questionnaire: open
to go deeper

Qualitative research seeks open and deep answers.

The researcher wants people to share their thoughts
on a topic. The advantage of this approach is depth.
Each person can be asked follow-up questions so the
researcher understands what the respondent is
thinking.
The qualitative approach gets to the details.
 Journey maps follow the entire purchasing decision
process

A journey map identifies opportunities to

improve the entire shopping experience. When
you want to learn more about a customer's
experience throughout the purchasing process,
you can use a series of open-ended questions
to lead to a customer journey story map and
graphical diagram of a customer's experience
throughout the purchasing process. purchase,
from knowledge of needs to the purchasing
process and the post-purchase relationship.
 Focus groups stimulate discussion

Focus group interviewing involves

interviewing 6 to 10 people simultaneously
in an informal group setting. A focus group
also uses open-ended questions, but here the
interviewer seeks group interaction to
stimulate thinking and get immediate
reactions.

• Focus groups can be conducted in person or online.

• Focus groups can be conducted quickly and at relatively low cost.

Online focus groups help offset some of the limitations of traditional face-to-face
focus groups.
 The structured Fixed responses speed up
questionnaire gives response and analysis
more objective results.
Survey questionnaires typically provide fixed
When researchers use answers to questions to simplify analysis of
identical questions and responses. This multiple choice approach also
answer alternatives, they makes it easier and faster for respondents to
can summarize respond.
information
Surveys come in many forms.
quantitatively. Samples
can be larger and more Decisions about which specific questions to
representative, and ask and how to ask them generally depend on
various statistics can be how respondents will be contacted: by mail,
used to draw email, by phone, or in person. The question
conclusions. and answer approach used can also affect
the survey.
 Mail and online surveys are common and convenient

These types of surveys are useful when in-depth

questions need to be asked. But the questions
should be simple and easy to follow.

Disadvantages:
• Many people do not complete them.
• Due to the widespread use of surveys, many of
them are now ignored.
• The response rate is usually low and A well-designed survey with a
respondents may not be representative. representative response can
• Sometimes it takes time to collect data provide strategic
information.
 Telephone surveys: fast
but perhaps not reliable
Telephone interviews can be effective for
getting quick answers to simple questions
or when you need to do some digging and
really know what the respondent thinks.
Personal interview surveys:
they can be exhaustive
An in-person interview survey is
typically more expensive than online,
mail, or telephone surveys. But it is
easier to capture and maintain the
attention of the respondent.

Questioning has limitations

Sometimes respondents give answers that they think the questioner wants to hear, or
they may not accurately remember past events. When that is the case, observation
may be more precise or economical.
 Ethnographic research
analyzes clients in their
own environment.
In marketing research,
ethnography involves studying
customers in their homes or at
work. Video cameras can be
useful. Some researchers use this
technique to study the paths
consumers take through a store
or how they select products.
Evaluate costs and benefits
of research.
Whether collecting secondary
data for a situation analysis or
primary data from a focus group
or survey, marketing research
takes time and money.
Different research methods
provide different insights and
have different costs.
 The experimental method controls the conditions.

With the experimental method, researchers compare the responses of two or

more groups that are similar except for the characteristic being tested. The
experimental method is sometimes called A/B testing because it compares
options labeled A and B. Researchers want to know if the specific
characteristic, which varies between groups, causes differences in any
response between the groups.
7.3:The Four Vs Dimensions of Big Data
Big data’s variety creates opportunity
and
challenge
Marketing managers can also collect a wide variety of data. These days data are more than
just sales numbers. For example, Coca-Cola takes data from webcams that monitor
consumers’ facial expressions while watching its ads. Other companies have machines that
analyze photos on sites such as Instagram. From photos, software identifies social media
users’ emotions, the activity they are engaged in, logos on their clothing, and products they
might be carrying.
Velocity creates opportunity if
firms can act fast
Big data velocity refers to the speed at which
data are generated and can be processed.
Velocity is important for marketing managers
seeking to do predictive analytics and trying to
anticipate what customers might be interested
in buying when using real-time data.
Store data so they’re easy to access
An MIS organizes all of the incoming data
and information in a data warehouse —a
place where databases are stored so that
they are available when needed. You can
think of a data warehouse as an
electronic library, where all of the
information can be searched with some
sort of search engine. With big data,
firms have had to build larger data
warehouses and find new ways to store,
index, and access a wide variety of data.
Data security matters
Storing data—especially data on individual
customers—is a responsibility that a company
must take seriously. While many of the
technical aspects of protecting data fall on the
information technology staff, marketing
managers need to recognize the harm that
may come from data breeches. A firm’s
reputation can be severely damaged when a
hacker accesses its customers’ personal data.
High-profile data breeches at Uber, Target,
Under Armour, Panera Bread, and Saks Fifth
Avenue did not engender customer trust in
those firms.
Analysis changes data to information, knowledge, and
wisdom
All those data in raw form are not useful to marketing
managers. An MIS therefore includes software
programs that analyze raw data and convert them to
something managers can use to make marketing
strategy decisions. Data become information when
they provide answers to questions of “who,” “what,”
“where,” “how much,” and “when.” So, for example,
sales data might be presented in a table that shows
the sales of different products over time and in
different geographic locations, answering questions
such as: Who is buying our product? Where do they
live? How much do they buy? What products are they
buying?
 Step 4: Interpreting the Data
After someone collects the data, they have
to be analyzed to decide what they all
mean. In quantitative research, this step
usually involves statistics. Statistical
packages—easy-to-use computer
programs that analyze data—have made
this step easier. As we noted earlier, some
firms provide decision support systems so
managers can use a statistical package to
interpret data themselves. More often,
however, technical specialists are involved
at the interpretation step.
 Research results are not exact
An estimate from a sample, even a representative one, usually varies somewhat
from the true value for a total population. Managers sometimes forget this. They
assume that survey results are exact. Instead, when interpreting sample estimates,
managers should think of them as suggesting the approximate value. If random
selection is used to develop the sample, researchers can use statistical methods to
help determine the likely accuracy of the sample value. This is done in terms of
confidence intervals—the range on either side of an estimate that is likely to contain
the true value for the whole population. Some managers are surprised to learn how
wide that range can be.
 Validity problems can destroy research

Validity concerns the extent to which data measure what they are intended to
measure. Validity problems are important in marketing research because many
people will try to answer even when they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Further, a poorly worded question can mean different things to different people and
invalidate the results.
 Step 5: Solving the Problem

Some researchers, and some managers, are fascinated by the interesting tidbits of
information that come from the research process. They are excited if the research
reveals something they didn’t know before. But if research doesn’t have action
implications, it has little value and suggests poor planning by the researcher and the
manager. When the research process is finished, the marketing manager should be
able to apply the findings in marketing strategy planning—the choice of a target
market or the mix of the Four Ps. If the research doesn’t provide information to help
guide these decisions, the company has wasted research time and money.
MUCHAS GRACIAS :)