Chapter :4

Managing Marketing
Information to Gain
Customer Insights
Chapter topics:
❖ Marketing information and customer insights
❖ Marketing information and today’s big data
❖ Marketing information System (MIS):
✓ Assessing marketing information needs
✓ Developing marketing information
✓ Analyzing and using marketing information
❖ Other marketing information considerations
 MARKETING INFORMATION AND
CUSTOMER INSIGHTS
To create value for customers and build meaningful
relationships with them, marketers must first gain
fresh, deep insights into what customers need and
want. Such customer insights come from good
marketing information.

❑ To gain good customer insights, marketers must

effectively manage marketing information from a
wide range of sources.
Marketing Information and ‘Big Data’

❖ With the recent explosion of information

technologies, companies can now generate and
find marketing information in great quantities.
❖ Far from lacking information, most marketing
managers are overloaded with data and often
overwhelmed by it.

Big Data: The huge and complex data sets generated

by today’s sophisticated information generation,
collection, storage and analysis techniques.
Marketing Information and Customer Insights

Marketing Information Systems

Marketing information system consists of
people, equipment and procedures for:
❖ Assessing the information needs
❖ Developing needed information
❖ Helping decision makers to use the
information for customer
Marketing Information Systems (MIS)

MIS provides information to the company's

marketing and other managers and external
partners such as suppliers, resellers, and
marketing service agencies
Marketing Information System
Assessing Marketing
Information Needs
 Developing Marketing
Information

Marketers obtain information

from:
1. Internal Data
2. Marketing Intelligence
3. Marketing Research
 Developing Marketing Information
01 02 03

Internal Data Marketing Intelligence Marketing Research

Marketing research is
Marketing intelligence is the systematic design,
Internal databases are the systematic collection, analysis,
electronic collections monitoring, collection and and reporting of data
of consumer and analysis of publicly relevant to a specific
market information available information marketing situation
obtained from data about consumers, facing an organization
sources within the competitors, and and creating new
company network developments in the information for
marketing environment. marketing decisions.
The Marketing Research Process

▪ Defining the problem and research

objectives
▪ Developing the research plan for
collecting information
▪ Implementing the research plan-
collecting and analyzing the data
▪ Interpreting and reporting the findings
Defining the problem
and research objectives

Exploratory Research

Descriptive Research

Causal Research
 Research objectives
The objective of
▪ Exploratory research: is to gather preliminary
information that will help define the problem
and suggest hypotheses.
▪ Descriptive research: is to describe things, such
as the market potential for a product or the
demographics and attitudes of customers who
buy the product.
▪ Causal research: is to test hypotheses about
cause and effect relationships.
 Developing the Research Plan

• Outlines sources of existing data

• Spells out the specific research approaches,

contact methods, sampling plans, and instruments to
gather data
Developing research plan

Written Research Plan Includes:

Management problem
Research objectives
Information needed
How the results will help
management decisions
Budget
 Developing Research Plan

● Secondary data ● Primary data

consist of consist of
information that information
already exists gathered for the
somewhere, having special research
been collected for plan (Collecting
another purpose data at hand).
Developing Research Plan
Dealing with secondary data:

Advantages Disadvantages
Current
Cost

Relevant
Speed
Accuracy
Could not get
data otherwise
Impartial
 Developing Research Plan
Primary data collection:
✓ involves gathering primary data by
➢ Observational observing relevant people, actions, and
research situations

➢ Ethnographic ✓ involves sending trained observers to

research watch and interact with consumers in
their natural environment
1. Research
Approaches ✓ is the most widely used method and is best
➢ Survey research for descriptive information—knowledge,
attitudes, preferences, and buying behavior

➢ Experimental research ✓ is best for gathering causal information—

cause-and-effect relationships
Developing Research Plan
Contact Methods
Observation:

Telephone
Survey: Mail
Personal online

Experiment:
 Developing Research Plan

Sampling Plan
Sample is a segment of the population selected for
marketing research to represent the population as a
whole
– Who is to be surveyed?
– How many people should be surveyed?
– How should the people be chosen?
Developing Research Plan

Research Instruments
❖ Questionnaires
• Closed-end questions include all possible answers,
and subjects make choices among them
– Provide answers that are easier to interpret and
tabulate
• Open-end questions allow respondents to answer in
their own words
– Useful in exploratory research
Developing Research Plan

Research Instruments

Checkout
scanners

People Neuro
meters Mechanical marketing
devices
 Collecting the
Marketing Research information
Processing the
information
Implementing the
Analyzing the
Research Plan ---- information
Interpreting and Interpret findings
reporting the
Draw conclusions
findings --------
Report to management
 Analyzing and using marketing
Information
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Ensuring best analysis and use of individual customer data
presents special problems. The marketers now use CRM to
manage detailed information about individual customers and
carefully manage customer touch points to maximize customers’
loyalty.
CRM consists of sophisticated software and analytical tools that
integrate customer information from all sources, analyze it in
depth, and apply the results to build stronger customer
 Analyzing Marketing Information
Customer Relationship Management
Touchpoints

Service and
Customer Sales force Web site
support
purchases contacts visits
calls

Credit and
Satisfaction Research
payment
surveys studies
interactions
Distributing and Using Marketing
Information
Information distribution involves entering information
into databases and making it available in a time-
useable manner
• Intranet provides information to employees and
other stakeholders
• Extranet provides information to key customers
and suppliers
Other Marketing Information Considerations

Marketing Research in Small Businesses

and Nonprofit Organizations
International Market Research

Public Policy and Ethics

• Customer privacy
• Misuse of research findings