Marketing Final Exam

CONDUCTING MARKETING RESEARCH

Companies can conduct their own marketing research or hire other companies to do it for them. Good marketing research is characterized by the scientific method, creativity, multiple research methods, accurate model building, cost-benefit analysis, healthy skepticism, and an ethical focus.

The marketing research process consists of defining the problem and research objective, developing the research plan, collecting the information, analyzing the information, presenting the findings to management, and making the decision.

In conducting research, firms must decide whether to collect their own data or use data that already exists. They must also decide which research approach (observational, focus group, survey, behavioral data, or experimental) and which research instruments (questionnaire or mechanical instruments) to use. In addition, they must decide on a sampling plan and contact methods.

Analysis should ensure that the company achieves the sales, profits, and other goals established in its annual plan. The main tools are sales analysis, market-share analysis, marketing expense-to-sales analysis, and financial analysis of the marketing plan.

Profitability analysis seeks to measure and control the profitability of various products, territories, customer groups, trade channels, and order sizes. An important part of controlling profitability is assigning costs and generating profit-and-loss statements.

To measure marketing productivity there are 1) marketing metrics to assess the marketing effects and 2) marketing mix modeling to estimate causal relationships and measure how marketing activity affects outcomes. Dashboards are a structured way to disseminate the insights gleaned from these approaches.

Assessing the ROI of social media is challenging and requires both short-term and long-term perspectives. Facebook “likes” and Twitter tweets provide some idea of the brand’s engagement, but a better set of measurement is needed for an accurate snapshot of social media activities.