understanding the market

Associated Objectives

• Explain the key stages of the buying decision process for consumer and business markets
• Define the scope of marketing research and explain the marketing research process
• Discuss the different approaches to measuring marketing productivity

Select one of the questions below to prepare your initial response. When responding to your peers' posts, try to find classmates who responded to the other questions to provide your perspective.

1. What are the differences and similarities between the B2B and B2C buying decision processes? Give an example of your own personal buying decision process to explain and compare it to a business buying example.
2. What are the various approaches to marketing research that are used by marketers? Explain what methods you believe to be the most useful and provide an example, if possible, of a research instrument that you think collects meaningful information.
3. Marketing dashboards are often used to monitor the success of a marketing strategy. Discuss how marketing metrics are used and provide an example, if possible, of a dashboard that would be helpful for marketers.