Marketing Research

Model Building

A mathematical representation of the relationship between two or more variables; shows how one thing responds to changes in another.

Marketing Channel

A network of interdependent institutions that performs the logistics necessary for consumption to occur.

Single-Source Data

Diverse types of data offered by a single company; usually integrated on the basis of a common variable such as geographic area or store.

Open-Source Innovation

Effort that involves allowing other firms real-time access to otherwise proprietary data within the enterprise in an effort to expand the solution space developing innovations.

Environmental Scanning

Entails all information gathering designed to detect changes in the external operating environment of the firm.

Pricing

Involves finding the amount of monetary sacrifice that best represents the value customers perceive in a product after considering various market constraints.

Customer Discovery

Involves mining data to look for patterns identifying who is likely to be a valuable customer.

Big Data

Large quantities of data taken from multiple, varied sources that were not intended to be used together that are available to be analytically applied to provide input to organizational decision-making.

Marketing Orientation

The corporate culture existing for firms adopting the marketing concept. It emphasizes customer orientation, long-term profitability over short-term profits, and a cross-functional perspective.

Decision Support Systems

1. Foundational 2. Testing 3. Issues 4. Performance

4 Characteristics to Determine the Value of Information

1. Relevance 2. Completeness 3. Quality 4. Timeliness

Index of Retail Saturation

A calculation that describes the relationship between retail demand and supply as a ratio of sales potential per unit area of retail sales space.

Marketing Concept

A central idea in modern marketing thinking that focuses on how the firm provides value to customers more than on the physical product or production process.

Database

A collection of raw data arranged logically and organized in a form that can be stored and processed by a computer.

Intranet

A company's private data network that uses Internet standards and technology.

Decision Support System (DSS)

A computer-based system that helps decision-makers confront problems through direct interaction with databases and systems.

Neural Networks

A form of artificial intelligence in which a computer is programmed to mimic the way human brains process information.

Market-Basket Analysis

A form of data mining that analyzes anonymous point-of-sale transaction databases to identify coinciding purchases or relationships between products purchased and other retail shopping information.

Marketing Analytics

A general term that refers to efforts to measure relevant data and apply analytical tools in an effort to better understand how a firm can enhance marketing performance.

Enterprise Search

A search driven by an Internet type search engine that focuses on data within an organizations internal network.

Predictive Analytics

A system linking computerized data mined from multiple sources to statistical tools that can search for predictive relationships and trends.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL)

A website address that Web browsers recognize.

NFC

Abbreviation for near-field-communication or Wi-Fi-like systems communicating with specific devices within a defined space like inside of a retail unit or near a poster billboard.

RFID

Abbreviation for radio-frequency-identification tags that use a small microchip to communicate with data systems.

History Sniffing

Activities that covertly discover and record the websites that a consumer visits.

Geolocation Technologies

Allow whereabouts and/or movement of a consumer or object to be known through digital identification of some kind.

Supply Chain

Another term for a channel of distribution, meaning the link between suppliers and customers.

Relationship Marketing

Communicates the idea that a major goal of marketing is to build long-term relationships with the customers contributing to their success.

Data Retailers

Companies that provide access to data directly to the end consumer for a fee.

Data Wholesalers

Companies that put together consortia of data sources into packages that are offered to municipal, corporate, and university libraries for a fee.

Pull Technology

Consumers request information from a Web page and the browser then determines a response; the consumer is essentially asking for the data.

Cloud Storage

Data files stored on devices that make them directly accessible via the Internet.

Information

Data formatted (structured) to support decision making or define the relationship between two or more data points.

Secondary Data

Data that have been previously collected for some purpose other than the one at hand.

Internal Data

Data that originate in the organization and represent events recorded by or generated by the organization.

Customer Oriented

Describes a firm in which all decisions are made with a conscious awareness of their effect on the consumer.

Product Oriented

Describes a firm that prioritizes decision making in a way that emphasizes technical superiority in the product.

Production Oriented

Describes a firm that prioritizes efficiency and effectiveness of the production processes in making decisions.

External Data

Facts observed, recorded, and stored by an entity outside of the researcher's organization.

HIPPA

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

Promotion Research

Investigates the effectiveness of advertising, premiums, coupons, sampling, discounts, public relations, and other sales promotions.

Integrated Marketing Communication

Means that all promotional efforts (advertising, public relations, personal selling, event marketing, and so forth) should be coordinated to communicate to a consistent image.

Search Engine Optimizer

Mines Internet data to provide consulting to firms who wish to move up the listing of hits for terms related to their product category.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Part of the DSS that characterizes interactions between firm and customer.

Content Providers

Parties that furnish information of the World Wide Web.

Promotion

The communication function of the firm responsible for informing and persuading buyers.

Marketing Metrics

Quantitative ways of monitoring and measuring marketing performance.

Stakeholder Orientation

Recognizing that multiple parties are affected by firm decisions.

Data

Recorded facts or measures of certain phenomena (things).

Performance-Monitoring Research

Refers to research that regularly, sometimes routinely, provides feedback for evaluation and control of marketing activity.

Geo-Demographics

Refers to the information describing the demographic profile of consumers in a particular geographic region.

Market Dynamism

Represents the rate of change in environmental and competitive factors.

Applied Marketing Research

Research conducted to address a specific marketing decision for a specific firm or organization.

Cross-Checks

The comparison of data from one source with data from another source to determine the similarity of independent projects.

Basic Marketing Research

Research conducted without a specific decision in mind that usually does not address the needs of specific organization. It attempts to expand the limits of marketing knowledge in general and is not aimed at solving a particular pragmatic problem.

Open Data Partnership

Researchers agree to make the information they collect from activities like Web tracking available to the consumers from whom they gather the information.

Proprietary Data

Secondary data owned and controlled by the organization.

Push Technology

Sends data to a user's computer without a request being made; software is used to guess what information might be interesting to consumers based on the pattern of previous responses.

Cookies

Small data that a content provider can save onto the computer of someone who visits its website.

Snart Agent Software

Software capable of learning an Internet user's preferences and automatically searching out information in selected websites and then distributing it.

Open Source Information

Structured data openly shared between companies.

Keyword Search

Takes place as the search engine searches through millions of Web pass for documents containing the keywords.

Site Analysis Techniques

Techniques that use secondary data to select the best location for retail or wholesale operations.

Scanner Data

The accumulated records resulting from in-store point-of-sale data recordings.

Marketing Research

The application of the scientific method in searching for the truth about marketing phenomena. These activities include defining marketing opportunities and problems, generating and evaluating marketing ideas, monitoring performance, and understanding the marketing process.

Integrated Marketing Mix

The effects of various combinations of marketing-mix elements on important outcomes.

Proprietary Marketing Research

The gathering of new data to investigate specific problems.

Data Warehouse

The multitiered computer storehouse of current and historical data.

Market Tracking

The observation and analysis of trends in industry volume and brand share over time.

Data Warehousing

The process allowing important day-to-day operational data to be stored and organized for simplified access.

Data Transformation

The process of changing the original form of the data to a format suitable to achieve the research objective; also called data transformation.

Market Intelligence

The subset of information that actually has some explanatory power enabling effective decisions to be made.

Database Marketing

The use of customer data-bases to promote one-to-one relationships with customers and create precisely targeted promotions.

Data Mining

The use of powerful computer analytical routines through huge volumes of data searching for useful patterns of relationships.

Scientific Method

The way researchers go about using knowledge and evidence to reach objective conclusions about the real world.

Culturally Cross-Validate

To verify that the empirical findings from one culture also exist and behave similarly in another culture.

Total Value Management

Trying to manage and monitor the entire process by which consumers receive benefits from a company.

Electronic Data Intercharge (EDI)

Type of exchange that occurs when one company's computer system is integrated with another company's system.

Universal Product Code

UPC is the bar-coded information that contains product information that can be read by optical scanners.

Online Sentiment Analysis

Using date indicating the total positive or negative mentions of a brand on the Internet to asses and understand the strength of the brand.