marketing

• marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, evaluating and satisfying customers needs profitability
• Market research is the collection of information from consumers, and people who may become customers, finding out whether they like or will buy a business's products. Such research may be about existing products or new products.
• The purpose of market research is to learn about the desires of the target market group to guide the marketing mix
• why businesses may spend money finding out about their market:

  -Information ensures they are providing products consumers are likely to buy

  -enables them to price the products at an acceptable level

  -type of people who are their target market

  -able to prove if packaging is attractive to customers
• Secondary or Desk research - This is the use of existing data that has already been collected and analysed.

  Sources of secondary research would be:

  -journals

  -information from internet

  -newspaper
• advantages of secondary research:

  -Information is cheap to obtain as it has already been collected>>> money can be reinvested to gain C.A and increased profits

  -Information is available immediately >>> no time wasted + products can be released to know competitors

  -Information from a reliable source should be reasonably accurate + well researched>>> informed decision making+ can be targeted to customer needs.
• Disadvantages of secondary research:

  -Data is not collected for the exact purpose of the business>>> unreliable by not meeting needs, expensive marketing mistake and a waste of time

  -Out of date information depending on when it was collected>>>market could have changed, unreliable, waste of time, marketing mistake.

  -Information is available to every business>>> no C.A, may end up with similar products to competitor, loss of sales and profit
• Primary Research is the collection of original information and carried out by direct contact with the public.
• Advantages of primary research include:

  -information will be taken directly from people who are consumers>>> more accurate results as the product is targeted to consumer needs= more sales

  -information is up to date and collected for a specific purpose>>> more reliable+catered to current market=increased sales
• disadvantages of primary research:

  -people may give inaccurate answers>>>unreliable data+expensive marketing mistake

  -it is time consuming and costly to design, carry out and analyse data>>> wasted time if inaccurate and takes time away from core business objectives allowing the competitors to get an advantage.
• primary research -

  Questionaires and interviews are direct contact to find out information and are designed for exactly the information required.

  However it is time consuming and costly to design and takes time from business objectives
• primary research- observation involves watching people, monitoring and recording their behaviour. It is inexpensive but open to interpretation as it only measures behaviour and can be biased, also not suitable for all products.
• primary research- consumer panels

  involves paying experts to give an opinion on a product. Detailed information can be gathered to aid with accurate decision making as they are skilled but it is very expensive and money is taken away from investing in other parts of the business.
• primary research - focus groups are small carefully chosen groups who offer views on products. The results are gathered quickly and brought to market quicker to gain C.A. However others may be influenced by others giving unreliable information due to domineering participants.
• primary research - testing involves giving out samples of products and asking for an opinion. Tests are straightforward to organise >>> fast and consumers first hand opinions are given and can be read by body language leading to better information. It may not test a cross section of the public >>> unreliable data.
• primary research- sampling

  -Random sampling is where people are randomly selected and asked for opinions. every 10th person who walks down the street.

  -Quota sampling is where interviews are held with a set number of people who fit into pre determined categories. these views must reflect the views of everyone in their gender or age group. 50% male and 50% female
• Quota sampling is:

  • more accurate compared to random sampling >>>the final product is relevant to target market + C.A
  • everyone in a category has a chance of being chosen>>>reliable results
  • however the composition of the population must be known for correct proportions>>> costly and time consuming, time taken away from business.
• Random sampling is:

  • accurate due to firsthand information as the business obtains personal opinions about specific issues
  • data is collected quickly and cheaply>>> time and capital are being used effectively,more resources for the business
  • however some people may not be familiar with the product leading to inaccurate results and samples arent accurate unless a big sample is used which is costly