As discussed in chapter 3, one of the most important parts of micro-environment is the customer/consumers. It is very vital for the marketers to put a detail microscope on each and every customer. So Consumer insights actually talk about studying your consumer in more detail and how to create value through it. Although it is very important to get that information, at the same time it is difficult to obtain. In today’s era, companies which are not consumer-centric are facing a huge amount of problem regarding gathering new customers. To make things easier, Academicians create a software known as Marketing Information System in which you can gather information from the customer then store it and then dispense it to the respective managers or departments. Since manual work will take a lot of time and will be costly.
"Research" basically is of two types, Qualitative (study more closely about human behavior and their experience) and Quantitative focuses more towards numbers and gather data from a larger audience and then generalize it. Different techniques will be discussed in detail.
Three most important tool to gather data are : Internal data ( as the word internal suggest itself, acquiring data and information within the company from employees and workers) , Competitive marketing intelligence ( where you get data from public which is readily available, you can do surveys in that or see how your competitor is performing) , Market research (To collect and store data with a current situation a company is facing, for example company want to launch a new product for this they have to do market research about the demands and needs of the customers). Types of market research will be discussed in upcoming semesters.
To conduct a market research you need to create a market plan in which you find a specific gap (management problem) to be fulfilled. Then you will start defining your objectives how to fulfill them, what kind of information is required to complete my objectives, and lastly, for conducting research you will be needing a significant amount of budget because you have to travel, pay people etc.
In terms of data, there are two types vis-e-vis Primary (first-hand information which you have collected through surveys, interview) and Secondary (previous work done in that domain where your key interest is for e.g. literature review).
Furthermore, Research approaches are observational research (a type of primary research where you observe critically, for example, their shopping behavior, the way they spend, how much they spend. The time span of observation is less. Another type of research is Ethnography, where time span of research is expanded to years and you observe it in a natural setting. For example, I want to run an ethnography on a family buying behavior and their lifestyle for this I have to stay with them for few years see them in a natural setting, blend with them and make a report out of it. Survey research, you develop a questionnaire on the basis of your research objectives and then you ask people regarding it or tell them to fill that questionnaire. And lastly Experimental research in which you collect primary information in a controlled setting like I want to launch a new product and I want to test market it before commercialization, I just ask some of the outlets about display it and I can monitor people reaction regarding it.
For Qualitative research, we focus more towards human interaction, their experiences, lifestyle. Here we conduct a Focus group, where a group of people shares their opinion regarding a topic floated by the mediator(researcher), In-depth interviews, where one to one interview is conducted to see how he/she respond to the questions and further probe them to get the desired answers.
#Consumer insights#Marketing Information System#Qualitative#Quantitative#Internal data#Competitive marketing intelligence#Market research #observational research#Ethnography#Survey research#Experimental research
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