CHAPTER 4: Managing Market Information

Marketing Information and Customer Insights

To build value for customers and develop effective relationships with them, you must
first gather new, deep insights into the needs and wants of your customers as
marketers. This can be challenging to achieve that is why marketers have to manage
marketing information from various sources.

Customer insight includes more than just raw data or research. It’s a multi-dimensional
position of customers gathered from a strategic analysis of quantitative and qualitative
data and information that are compiled about the customers, including surveys and
consultations, demographics, experiences, formal and informal communication, and
customer feedback, among others.

This collection of customer insight can be used for marketing strategy and policy, to
market services, to distribute resources, to manage performance, to change behaviors,
and to offer input for service design.

Marketing Information System

The Marketing Information System (MIS) involves people, equipment, and procedures
used to collect, sort, analyze, evaluate, storing and distribute necessary, timely, and
accurate information to marketing decision-makers. These data include facts, estimates,
guidelines, policies, opinion and other relevant information required for marketing
decisions.
CHAPTER 4: Managing Market Information

Assessing Marketing Information Needs

An effective marketing information system (or MIS) is used to assess marketing
information needs. It primarily caters to the company’s marketing and other managers.
However, it may also provide data to external partners, such as suppliers, resellers, or
marketing services agencies. A case in point is Wal-mart who presents major suppliers
access to information on customer buying patterns and inventory levels. While Dell
creates customized premium pages for big customers, providing them access to product
design and support, order status, and service information. In designing an information
system, the company must take into consideration the needs of all of these users.

An effective marketing information system levels out what the data users would like to
acquire against what they really need and what is practical to offer. Managers are first
interviewed by the company to find out the information they would like. Some managers
will request for whatever information they can obtain without really assessing what they
actually need.

Too much information can be as disadvantageous as too little. Other managers may
leave out things they must know, or they may not solicit for some data they should have.
For example, because they are not aware of the new product they do not consider
asking about it. It is crucial for managers to know about a new product that a competitor
prepares to introduce for the next year. The MIS has to remain vigilant on the marketing
environment so that decision-makers will be given the information they should have to
formulate key marketing decisions.

Marketers can cull information from:

1. Internal records can be generated from company’s sale, marketing, accounting

departments.
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2. Marketing intelligence gathers and analyzes available public data of competitors
and the marketplace.
3. Marketing research analyzes the generated data for reports.
4. Marketing decision support systems are tools that support the marketing decision
process.

Developing Marketing Information

Marketers have been talking about the necessity to develop systems to join every piece
of marketing together from creating marketing communications to selling products and
offering after sales customer service.

There are several methods employed by different companies for gathering data and
information. The approaches to gathering data may differ from company to company
according to their specific needs. What are typically used are survey research,
observational research, focus group interview, sampling research plan, questionnaires
and personal contact method. Marketers need to be innovative. What is needed is a
system that will allow them to (1) formulate better decisions and (2) support those
decisions with accurate data. The initial steps of this tactic usually involve the following:

 Determine the systems the company already has in place.

 Examine the helpful marketing information that can be drawn out from those
systems.
 Find out the information marketers’ need that they are not presently receiving
from systems.
 Discover or develop additional systems to offer the required marketing
information.
 Incorporate these systems with corporate (company-wide) systems (if possible
and not too costly).

Distributing Marketing Information

Information alone has no worth; its value comes from its use. Simply put, the collection
of information has no worth unless it is utilized to make better marketing decision-
making. Timely and accurate information should be readily available to managers and
executives who make marketing decisions and deal with customers. This is possible
through standard performance reports, intelligence updates and other information
gathered by research studies.

MIS versus Marketing Research

CHAPTER 4: Managing Market Information
An MIS is intended to guide daily marketing planning and decision-making while
marketing research is generally carried out to deal with a specific marketing problem
confronting a firm, such as will enough consumers purchase a new proposed product
offering.

Marketing Research
There are two big categories of marketing research – Secondary and Primary.

Secondary data is information gathered earlier for other purposes but can be used in
the present study. Before going through the time and expense of gathering primary
data, it is wise to examine secondary data first. Secondary data may come from internal
sources such as warranty cards and sales invoices, or may be external to the company
such as published or commercially available data. The government census is a relevant
source of secondary data.

Secondary data contributes to the advantage of reducing data gathering costs and
saving time. But the data may not suit the problem perfectly and that the accuracy may
be more difficult to verify for secondary data than for primary data.

Some organizations republish secondary data other than the original source which may
cause some errors and exclude important explanations. It is best to obtain secondary
data directly from its source with the consideration of who the source is and whether the
findings may be partial.

Secondary data must be often supported by primary data derived specifically for the
study at hand.

When there are still a lot of holes that remain to be plugged, marketers will often
conduct primary research, which is their own research.

Primary data may include demographic and socioeconomic characteristics,

psychological and lifestyle characteristics, opinions and attitudes, knowledge and
awareness (for example, brand awareness), intentions (for example, purchase
intentions). Though useful, intentions are not a consistent indication of actual future
behavior. Motivation or a person's motives are more constant than his/her behavior,
making motive a more reliable predictor of future behavior than is past behavior.

Primary data can be obtained by observation or communication. Communication

engages respondents in questioning either verbally or in writing. This approach is
flexible, since one only needs to ask for the information; however, the answer may not
be accurate. Communication normally is cheaper and quicker than observation.
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Observation involves the documenting of actions and is executed by either a person or
some electronic or mechanical device. Observation is less flexible than communication
since some characteristics of a person may not be observable at once, such as
attitudes, knowledge, awareness, intentions, and motivation. Observation also might
consume more time since observers may have to wait for appropriate events to happen.
In general, observation is more accurate than communication.

The Marketing Research Process

Defining the Developing the Implementing the

Interpreting and
problem and research plan for research plan -
reporting the
research collecting collecting and
findings
objectives information analyzing the data

The marketing research process is a set of defined stages through which marketing
information is collected. The basic steps include:

1. Defining the problem and research objectives. Defining a problem is the initial
step in the research process. In many ways, research begins with a problem that
management is dealing with. This problem has to be understood, the cause
identified, and solutions established.

However, it is not always easy to research most management problems. The

management problem must first be translated into a research problem. You can
find a solution once you tackle the problem from a research perspective. For
example, “sales are stagnant” is a management problem.

Making it into a research problem, you may scrutinize the experiences and
expectations of several groups: potential customers, repeat purchasers, and first-
time buyers. You then ascertain if the lack of sales is due to:

a. Inadequate expectations that result to a general lack of desire to

purchase, or
b. Bad performance experience and a lack of desire to repurchase.

How do a management problem and a research problem differ then?

Management problems zero in on an action. Do we advertise more aggressively?
Do we modify our advertising message? Do we replace an under-performing
product configuration? If so, how?
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On the flipside, research problems focus on offering the information you require
in order to solve the management problem.

2. Developing the research plan for collecting information. The research design is a
framework for performing the study and gathering data. It is defined as the
detailed methods and procedures you use to obtain the information you need.

3. Implementing the research plan – collecting and analyzing the data. Your
research design will evolve as you choose techniques to use. There are various
approaches to collect data. Two important approaches to consider are
observations and interviews.

Interviews need for you to ask questions and receive responses. General
methods of research communication include face-to-face interviews, by
telephone, by snail mail, by email, or over the internet. This wide category of
research techniques is known as survey research.

These methods are utilized in both experimental research and non-experimental

research. Observation is another way to collect data. Observing a person’s or
company’s past or present behavior can foretell future purchasing decisions.
Data collection techniques for past behavior can involve analyzing company
records and reviewing studies published by external sources.

Recording your results can help you analyze information from interview or
observation techniques. Because the recorded results are essential,
measurement and development are directly associated with which data collection
techniques you use. The way you record the data shifts depends on which
method you use.

4. Interpreting and reporting the findings. Analyzing data makes data useful.
Analysis techniques differ and their effectiveness depends on the kinds of
information you are gathering, and the kind of measurements you are applying.
Analysis techniques should be determined before this step since they are
dependent on the data collection.

The marketing research process concludes with the research report. It includes
all of your information, together with an accurate account of your research
process, the outcomes, conclusions, and recommended courses of action. The
report should obtain all the necessary information the decision-maker needs to
understand the project.
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It should be easy to understand. It’s essential to obtain a balance between
conciseness and completeness. No information should be left out; however,
avoid too technical information that it overwhelms the reading audience.

One technique to resolving this problem is to make two reports: the summary
report and the technical report. The technical report includes the methods and
the underlying assumptions. Here, the detailed findings of the research project
are discussed.

The summary report recapitulates the research process and communicates the
findings and conclusions as simply as possible. Another approach to keep your
findings clear is to present different representations of your reports. Graphs,
powerpoint presentations, and face-to-face reports are all general methods for
presenting your information.

These alternative presentations will provide the decision-maker an understanding

of all aspects of the project along with the written report for reference.

Customer Relationship Management

Customer relationship management (CRM) pertains to practices, strategies and
technologies that companies employ to manage and analyze customer relations and
data throughout the customer lifecycle, with the objective of improving business
interactions with customers, supporting customer retention and promoting sales growth.

CRM systems are created to gather information on customers across different channels
or points of interaction between the customer and the company -- which could consist of
the company's website, live chat, telephone, direct mail, marketing materials and social
media. CRM systems can also provide customer service staff detailed information on
customers' personal information, buying preferences, purchase history, and other
concerns.

Customer data can earn major financial rewards for your company’s sales, marketing
and customer service departments.

Companies also grapple to realize a "single view of the customer," where different data
series can be flawlessly organized and accessed in one dashboard or interface to
develop one perspective of a customer’s account and relevant information. Problems
occur when customer data is stored in several separate systems or when data is
obscured by duplicate or outdated information that slows down and hinders the
business process. These challenges can result to a drop in customer experience
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because of long wait times during phone calls, inappropriate managing of technical
support cases and other issues.

Studies project that customers, particularly Millennials, are highly disappointed with the
contact center experience. They expect multiple opportunities of communication with a
company and demand a flawless interaction across many different channels, the most
popular of which tend to be social media. The key challenge of a CRM system is
creating a cross-channel customer experience that is consistent and reliable.