Marketing Information and Research
Information is the key to effective decision-making. Knowing your customers, the marketplace you are operating in, the competitive environment, technology, legislation, trends, and so on can enable a business to make decisions that are appropriate for the company, their products, and the markets they have a presence in. Marketing research is how this information is collected and analyzed. For example, if you were considering opening a chain of cheese shops across Europe, you would want to know about consumers in each city, what kind of competition you might be facing, the price points you should consider, and local trends in the cheese industry. This is the marketing intelligence you need to make decisions. The marketing research process defines how you will obtain this information. Read this chapter for an in-depth look at the marketing research process and its resulting marketing intelligence. This resource also explores specific case studies that show how research enables companies to make effective decisions.
Outcome: The Marketing Research Process
What you'll learn to do: outline a standard process for using marketing information and research to address an organization’s strategic questions
Marketers can glean powerful insights from marketing information, but these insights generally don't come from nowhere.
Instead, it takes a well-structured research process to identify what you are trying to understand better and then take the appropriate steps, using the right information, to get your questions answered. The next part of this module explains a standard process organizations use to conduct marketing research and generate insights from marketing information of all types.
Learning Activities
The learning activities for this section include the following:
- Reading: The Marketing Research Process
- Self Check: The Marketing Research Process