MANAGING MARKETING

INFORMATION TO GAIN
CUSTOMER INSIGHTS
Chapter 4
 Chapter Four Outline
 Marketing Information and Customer Insights
 Marketing Information Systems (MIS)

 1. Assessing Marketing Information Needs

 2. Developing Marketing Information
 A. Internal Databases
 B. Marketing Intelligence
 C. Marketing Research
 Steps in the Marketing Research Process
 Marketing Information and Customer Insights

 To create value for customers and build meaningful relationships with them,
marketers must gain fresh, deep insights into what customers need and want.

 Customer insights- Fresh understandings of customers and the marketplace

which is obtained from marketing information that become the basis for
creating customer value and relationships.

 Customer insight is about a customer need that is not being met as well as it
could be.

 Customer insights comes from good marketing information.

 Companies use customer insights to develop a competitive advantage.

 Marketing Information Systems (MIS)

Marketing information system (MIS)

consists of people and procedures for:
1. Assessing the marketing information needs
2. Developing needed information
3. Helping decision makers use the information for the
benefit of the customers
Marketing Information System
 Assessing Marketing Information Needs .1

 MIS provides information to the

company’s marketing and other
managers and external partners such
as suppliers, resellers, and marketing
service agencies.
 1. Assessing Marketing Information Needs

 Balancing what the information users would like to have against

what they need and what is feasible to offer.

 Too much information can be as harmful as too little information.

 The MIS must monitor the marketing environment to provide

decision makers with information they should have to better
understand customers and make key marketing decisions.


 Developing Marketing Information .2

 Marketers can obtain the needed information from:

A. Internal data

B. Marketing intelligence

C. Marketing research
 A. Internal Databases

 Internal databases are electronic collections of consumer and market

information obtained from data sources within the company network.

 Problems with internal databases:

1. Information may have been collected for other purposes and could be
incomplete or wrong.

2. Data ages quickly

3. Managing the large amount of information that a company produces is a

challenge.
 B. Marketing Intelligence

Competitive Marketing Intelligence-The systematic collection and analysis of

publicly
available information about consumers, competitors and developments in the
marketplace.

Marketing intelligence techniques:

1. Observing consumers

2. Asking employees of the company for information

3. Benchmarking competitors products

4. Researching the Internet

 C. Marketing Research

 Marketing research is the

systematic design, collection,
analysis, and reporting of data
relevant to a specific marketing
situation facing an organization.
Steps in the Marketing Research Process
 1. Define the Problem and Research Objectives

 The statement of the problem and

research objectives guides the entire
research process.
 Marketing managers must not define the

problem too broadly or too narrowly

for the marketing researcher.
 1. Define the Problem and Research Objectives

 Example of a research study: An airline company would like to add an in-

flight Internet service for its first-class passengers on its flight.
 Defining the problem too broadly: A marketing manager asks marketing
researchers to find out everything about the needs of first-class passengers.
 This approach will result in the collection of a lot of unnecessary information.
 Defining the problem too narrowly: A marketing manager asks marketing
researchers to find out whether passengers on flights from Amman to Dubai
would be willing to pay 25JD for an Internet connection.
 This approach will result in limited information.
 Define the problem as follows: Will offering an in-flight Internet service
create enough profits for the airline company to justify its cost against other
possible investments in service improvements that the company can make?
1. Define the Problem and Research Objectives

 Three types of research:

 Exploratory research: The objective is to gather preliminary

information that will help define the problem and suggest
hypotheses.

 Descriptive research—Describes marketing problems,

situations, or markets, such as the market potential for a
product or the demographics and attitudes of consumers..

 Causal research—Tests hypothesis about cause and effect

relationships.
 2. Developing the Research Plan for Collecting Information

 After defining the problem, researchers must:

 Determine the exact information needed

 Develop a plan for gathering information

 Present the plan to management

 The research plan:

 Outlines sources of existing data
 Spells out the specific research approaches, contact methods, sampling
plans, and instruments to gather data
 2. Developing the Research Plan for Collecting Information

 The research plan should be presented in a written

proposal which includes:
 The management problem to be addressed
 The research objectives
 The information to be obtained
 How the results will help management’s decision
making
 The proposal should also include the estimated
research cost.
 Secondary Data

 Secondary data consists of information that already exists

somewhere, having been collected for another purpose. Examples:
commercial online databases and Internet search engines.

 Advantages of secondary data:

 Low cost

 Information can be obtained quickly

 Some data can not be obtained by the company in any other way.
 Secondary Data

 Disadvantages of secondary data:

 Companies can not get all the data that they need

 Information may not be very usable for current research project

 The researcher must evaluate the secondary data to make sure that the
information:

 Is relevant (fits the research projects needs)

 Is accurate ( reliably collected and reported)

 Is current (up to date enough for current decisions)

 Primary Data Collection

 Primary data consists of information gathered for the special

research plan.

 Planning primary data collection involves making decisions on:

 A) The research approach

 B) The contact methods

 C) The sampling plan

 D) The research instrument

 A) The Research Approaches

 Observational research involves gathering

primary data by observing relevant people, actions,
and situations.

 Ethnographic research involves sending trained

observers to watch and interact with consumers in
their natural environment.
 A) The Research Approaches
Survey research is the most widely used method and is best for descriptive
information—knowledge, attitudes, preferences, and buying behavior.

 Advantage

 Flexible

 Disadvantages

 People may be unable or unwilling to answer

 People may give misleading or pleasing answers

 Privacy concerns

 Experimental research is best for gathering causal information—cause-and-

effect relationships.
 B) The Contact Methods

 1. Mail Questionnaires- Used to collect

large amount of information.
 2. Telephone inteviewing- Provides greater

flexibility than mail questionnaires but is

more expensive.

 3. Personal interviewing
 A) Individual interviewing
 B) The Contact Methods

 B) Group interviewing-
 Focus Groups
 Six to 10 people
 Trained moderator

 Challenges

 Expensive

 Difficult to generalize from small group

 Consumers not always open and honest

Focus Group
 B. The Contact Methods

 4. Online marketing research

 Advantages:
 Low cost

 Speed

 Higher response rates

 Good for hard to reach groups

 C) The Sampling Plan

 Sample is a segment of the population selected for

marketing research to represent the population as a
whole.
 Designing the sample requires three decisions:

 Who is to be studied?

 How many people should be studied?

 How should the people be chosen?

 C) The Sampling Plan
 Probability Sample
 Simple random sample
 Every member of the population has a known and equal chance of selection
 Stratified random sample
 The population is divided into mutually exclusive groups and random samples are drawn
from each group
 Cluster (area) sample
 The population is divided into mutually exclusive groups and the researcher draws a sample
 Nonprobability Sample
 Convenience sample
 The research selects the easiest population members
 Judgment sample
 The researcher uses their judgment to select population members
 Quota sample
 The researcher finds and interviews a prescribed number of people in each of several
categories
 D) The Research instrument

 Questionnaires:

 Most common research instrument

 Administered in person, by phone, or online

 Flexible

 Research must be careful with wording and ordering of questions

 D) The Research instrument

 Closed-end questions include all possible answers,

and subjects make choices among them.

 Provide answers that are easier to interpret and tabulate

 Open-end questions allow respondents to answer
in their own words
 Useful in exploratory research
 Implementing the Research Plan )3

 3) Implementing the Research Plan

 Collecting the information

 Processing the information

 Analyzing the information

4) Interpreting and Reporting the Findings

 4) Interpreting and Reporting the Findings

 The researcher must interpret the findings, draw

conclusions, and report them to management.
.
 The researcher should only present the

important findings and insight that are useful in

the major decisions faced by management.
 Reference
 Kotler, Philip and Gary Armstrong, Principles of
Marketing, 15th edition, Pearson Education
Limited, 2014.