MKT 305 Exam 1 Study Guide

Frugging

"fund-raising under the guise of a survey" because it does not involve the sale of a product or service, it is not covered in the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act of 1994, but it is widely considered to be unethical

Sugging

"selling under the guise of a survey" occurs when a "researcher" gains a respondent's cooperation to participate in a research study and then uses the opportunity to attempt to sell the respondent a good or service

What is marketing research?

(as defined by burns & bush) is the process of designing, gathering, analyzing, and reporting information that may be used to solve a specific marketing problem

Step 8: Determine Sample Plan and Size

- A population consists of the entire group that the researcher wishes to make inferences about based upon information provided by the sample data - A sample is a subset of the population. Sample plans describe how each sample element, or unit, is to be drawn from the total population. - The size of the sample determines how accurately your sample results reflect values in the population.

Disadvantages of Focus Groups

- Do not constitute representative samples - Difficult to interpret the results of the focus group - Cost per participant is high, though the total spent on focus group research is generally a fraction of what may be spent on quantitative research

Advantages of Focus Groups

- Generate fresh ideas - Allow clients to observe their participants - Directed at understanding a wide variety of issues - Allow fairly easy access to special respondent groups such as lawyers and doctors

Four important qualities of research objectives

- Specify from whom the information be gathered - Specify what information (construct) is needed - Specify the unit of measurement used to gather the information - Word questions used to gather the information in the respondent's frame of reference - precise, operational, detailed, clear

Mall intercepts

- The type of interaction with the respondent affects the collection method decision - If the respondent is required to handle, touch, feel, or taste a product, then these company services are reasonable.

Step 2: Define the Problem

- This is the most important of the 11 steps, if the problem is incorrectly defined, all else is wasted effort. - The problem can be viewed as a statement of decision alternatives - If there are no alternatives, no decision is necessary

The Two-fold goal of marketing

1. Attract new customers by promising superior value 2. Keep and grow current customers by delivering satisfaction

Marketing Research Process

1. Establish the need for marketing research 2. Define the problem 3. Establish research objectives 4. Determine research design 5. Identify information types and sources 6. Determine methods of accessing data 7. Design data collection forms 8. Determine the sample plan and size 9. Collect data 10. Analyze data 11. Prepare and present the final research report

First organized research

Charles Coolidge Parlin (known as "father of marketing research") conducted the first continuous and organized marketing research in 1911 for the Curtis Publishing Company. The purpose of Parlin's research was to increase advertising for the Saturday Evening Post magazine.

Step 9: Collect Data

Errors in collecting data may be attributed to fieldworkers or respondents and they may be either intentional or unintentional. What is important is that the researcher knows the sources of these errors and implements controls to minimize them

Industrial revolution impact on marketing research

Led to manufacturers producing goods for distant markets, and manufacturers needed to know about faraway consumers. This led to the growing need for marketing research.

Step 10: Analyze Data

Marketing researchers transfer data from the data collection forms and enter the data into software packages that aid them in analyzing the data.

Customized Service Firms

Offers a variety of research services tailored to meet the client's specific needs

Step 11: Prepare and Present the Final Research Report

Preparing and presenting the marketing research report is very important because, often, this is the only record of the research project for the client.

Step 7: Design Data Collection Forms

Questionnaire must be worded objectively, clearly, and without bias in order to communicate with respondents (Will the questions asked generate answers that satisfy the research objectives and ultimately solve the "problem"?)

Step 3: Establish Research Objectives

Research objectives tell the researcher exactly how to obtain the information necessary to allow the manager to choose between the decision alternatives

Step 5: Identify Information Types and Sources

Since research provides information to help solve problems, researchers must identify the type and sources of information they will use in this step - Primary information: information collected specifically for the problem at hand - Secondary information: information already collected

Limited-service supplier firms

Specialize in one or, at most, a few marketing research activities such as eye testing (eye tracking), mystery shopping, field services (data collection), or market segment specialists

research integrity

The loss of this, defined as performing research that adheres to accepted standards, may take the form of: - Withholding information - Falsifying data - Altering research results - Misinterpreting the research findings in a way that makes them more consistent with predetermined points of view

Step 4: Determine research design

There are three widely recognized research designs: - Exploratory: as the name implies, exploratory research is a form of casual, informal research that is undertaken to learn more about the research problem, learn terms and definitions, or identify research opportunities - Descriptive: describes the phenomena of interest. (A marketing executive who wants to know what types of people buy the company's brand needs a study to describe the demographic profile of heavy users of the company brand) - Causal: attempts to uncover what factors cause some event. (Will a change in the package size of our detergent cause a change in our sales?)

Step 6: Determining Methods of Accessing Data

When a researcher must communicate with respondents, there are four main choices of accessing data - Have a person ask questions - Use computer assisted questioning - Allow respondents to answer questions themselves without computer assistance - Use a combination of the above three methods

Step 1: Establish the Need for Marketing Research

When managers try to make decisions with inadequate information, this signals the need for marketing research The need for marketing research is affected by company policy: - Not conducting marketing research - Conducting different types of studies on a continuous basis at specified intervals - Certain types of studies being used whenever in a particular situation occurs - To conduct marketing research on an "as needed" basis - Management may also show a preference for a type of marketing research, i.e. focus groups

marketing intelligence system

a set of procedures and sources used by managers to obtain everyday information about pertinent developments in the environment

focus group facility

a set of rooms especially designed for this group and is conducted in a room that seats 10 people (optimum size is 6-12) and a moderator

Teleology

analyzes a particular behavior in terms of its benefits and costs to society (If there are individual costs, but group benefits are greater, then there are net gains and the behavior is judged to be ethical)

external suppliers

are outside firms hired to fulfill a firm's marketing research needs May organize by: - Function- i.e. data analysis, data collection - Type of research application-i.e. customer satisfaction, advertising effectiveness, new product development - Geography-i.e. domestic vs international - Type of customer-i.e. health care, government, telecommunications

focus group

are small groups of people brought together and guided by a moderator through an unstructured, spontaneous discussion for the purpose of gaining information relevant to the research problem.

Classification Questions

are used to classify respondents into various groups for purposes of analysis (which almost always include demographic questions)

Metric Response Format Questions

calls for a number to be provided by the respondent or utilizes a scale developed by the researcher

marketing decision support system (DSS)

collected data that may be accessed and analyzed using tools and techniques that assist managers in decision making

Types of research design

exploratory, descriptive, causal

Sample Design and Distribution Firms

firms such as Survey Sampling Inc. and Scientific Telephone Samples

internal reports system

gathers information generated by internal reports, which includes order, billing, inventory levels

marketing research system

gathers information not gathered by the other MIS component subsystems

secondary data

have previously been gathered by someone other than the researcher and/or for some other purpose than the research project at hand.

Full Service Supplier Firms

have the ability to conduct the entire marketing research project for the buyer

Subsystem of MIS

internal reports system, marketing intelligence system, marketing decision support system (DSS), and marketing research system

Organization of marketing research firms

internal research or external suppliers

projective techniques

involve situations in which participants are placed in (projected into) simulated activities in the hopes that they will divulge things about themselves that they might not reveal under direct questioning Examples: word association test, sentence completion test, balloon test, role-playing, and ethnographic research

pretesting surveys

involves conducting a dry run of the survey on a small, representative set of respondents in order to reveal questionnaire errors before the survey is launched

Marketing Information System (MIS)

is a structure consisting of people, equipment, and procedures to gather, sort, analyze, evaluate, and distribute needed, timely, and accurate information to marketing decision makers.

CGM in standardized information

is a type of secondary data in which the data collected and/or the process of collecting data are standardized for all users. Applications of Standardized Information -Measuring customer's attitudes -Defining market segments -Conducting market tracking studies -Monitoring media usage and promotion effectiveness

What is marketing?

is an attempt to create long-term customer relationships which will then likely satisfy the organization's objectives

internal research

is an entity within the firm that supplies Marketing Research. Examples: Kraft Foods, IBM, Kodak, General Mills, and Ford they may have: - Their own formal department - Have no formal department but place at least a single individual or a committee in charge of Marketing Research - Assign no one responsibility for conducting Marketing Research

Deontology

is concerned with the rights of the individual (If the rights of the individual are violated, then the behavior is not ethical)

Descriptive Research

is desirable when we wish to project a study's findings to a larger population. If the study's sample is representative, the findings may be used to predict some variable of interest such as sales Classification of Descriptive Research Studies - Cross-sectional studies measure units from a sample of the population at only one point in time (EX: sample surveys) - Longitudinal studies: repeatedly measure the same sample units of a population over time. - Longitudinal studies often make use of a panel which represents sample units who have agreed to answer questions at periodic intervals. - Many large research firms maintain panels of consumers.

Exploratory Research

is most commonly unstructured, informal research that is undertaken to gain background information about the general nature of the research problem. Can be accomplished by simply reading a magazine or even observing a situation Used in a number of situations: - Gain background information - Define terms - Clarify problems and hypotheses - Establish research priorities Some commonly used methods for conducting this are: - Secondary data analysis - Experience surveys - Case analysis - Other methods of qualitative research

Person-Administered Surveys

is one in which an interviewer reads questions, either face-to-face or over the telephone, to the respondent and records the answers advantages: - Feedback - Rapport - Quality control - Adaptability disadvantages: - Human error - Slowness - Cost - Interview evaluation (respondent's concerns that they are not answering "correctly")

Computer-Administered Surveys

is one in which computer technology plays an essential role in the interview work, often, but not always, completely eliminating the need for a personal interviewer advantages: - Speed - Error-free interviews - Use of pictures, videos, and graphics - Real-time capture of data - Reduction of anxieties caused by interview evaluation (respondent's concerns that they are not answering "correctly") disadvantages: - They require some level of technical skill - Costs may be significant

Self-Administered Surveys

is one in which the respondent completes the survey completely on his or her own. advantages: - Reduced cost - Respondent control - No interview-evaluation apprehension disadvantages: - Respondent errors - Lack of supervision - High questionnaire requirements

Open-ended response questions

is one in which the respondent is instructed to respond in his or her own words

skip questions

is one whose answer affects which question will be asked next

"Check All That Apply" Questions

is really a dual-choice question (When you purchased your most recent automobile, what features did you take into consideration?(Check all that apply.))

environmental studies test

make audits SWOT analysis

Ethics in marketing research

may be defined as a field of inquiry into determining what behaviors are deemed appropriate under certain circumstances as prescribed by codes of behavior that are set by society. Society determines what is ethical and what is not ethical. In some cases, this is formalized by our institutions. Some behavior is so wrongful that it is deemed illegal by statute.

Causal Research

may be thought of as understanding a phenomenon in terms of conditional statements of the form "If x, then y." - relationships are determined by the use of experiments, which are special types of studies - An experiment is defined as manipulating an independent variable to see how it affects a dependent variable, while also controlling the effects of additional extraneous variables. - Independent variables are those variables which the researcher has control over and wishes to manipulate - Dependent variables are those variables that we have little or no direct control over, yet we have a strong interest in.

American Community Survey (ACS)

may represent the most significant change in the availability of secondary data to be used for marketing research purposes in several decades The primary advantage is that it will provide data annually instead of once every ten years. Since these data will have the U.S. Census Bureau's "high marks" for reliable data and will be current, this is likely to become a major secondary data resource for marketing researchers.

Question Response Formats

open-ended, categorical and metric

Data Analysis Firms

provide assistance needed to analyze and interpret data using sophisticated techniques

specialized Research Technique Firms

provide assistance through expertise in special techniques

Categorical Response Format Questions

provides response options on the questionnaire

primary data

refers to information that is developed or gathered by the researcher specifically for the research project at hand

Question evaluation - bias

refers to scrutinizing the wording of a question to ensure the question is not biased and is worded such that respondents understand it and can respond to it with relative ease. Four "Do's" of Question Wording: 1. The question should be focused on a single issue or topic. 2. The question should be brief. 3. The question should be grammatically simple, if possible. 4. The question should be crystal clear. Four "Do Not's" of Question Wording: 1. Leading 2. Loaded 3. Double-barreled 4. Overstated

applied research

research undertaken to solve a specific problem

Mixed-Mode Surveys

sometimes referred to as "hybrid" surveys, use multiple data collection methods advantages: - is that researchers are able to use the disadvantages of each of the various modes to achieve a better data collection result disadvantages: - data collection methods is that complexity will increase

Field Service Firms

specialize in collecting data

Market Segment Specialist

specialize in collecting data from specific market segments such as Hispanics or children

Online Research Service Firms

specialize in providing services online

Hearing the voice of the customer

successful firms "hear the voice of the customer" it means: companies have the information they need to effectively satisfy wants and needs in the marketplace

Panel Equity

the value of readily available access to willing respondents, may become increasingly important in the future

Basic Research

to expand knowledge

Types of Focus Groups

traditional and nontraditional