Class Discussion Notes MKT 390 - 401

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Class Discussion Notes MKT 390 - 401

• September 12, 2001

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Marketing Knowledge

• Marketing Information System
• Assessing information needs
• Gathering information
• Analysis
• Disseminating to marketing
• Marketing knowledge
• Sum of all digitized information from marketing
  team (past and present), partners and consultants
• Includes intellectual capital, work outputs and
  contact information

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Marketing Knowledge

• Sources of marketing knowledge
• Internal records
• Non-marketing data
• Accounting data
• Sales
• Cash flow data
• Marketing expenses
• Profit and loss statements
• Logistics data
• Inventory
• Shipping and delivery data
• Sales force data
• Prospects
• Sales call info
• Field intelligence
• Contracts and proposals

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Marketing Knowledge

• Internal records contd
• Customer characteristics and behavior
• Current and prospective customer names
• Other contact info
• Purchase behavior or history
• Customer complaints
• Promotional redemptions

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Marketing Knowledge

• Sources of marketing knowledge contd
• Secondary data
• Pros
• Ease of retrieval
• Cheaper to obtain
• Cons
• Mismatch between data and marketers needs
• Data gathered for a different purpose
• Quality issues
• Out of date

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Marketing Knowledge

• Secondary data contd
• Marketing intelligence
• Demographic trends
• Competitors
• Technological forces
• Natural resources
• Social and cultural trends
• World and local economies
• Legal and political environments

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Marketing Knowledge

• Secondary data contd
• Where do we find marketing intelligence?
• Publicly generated data
• US Patent Office
• World Trade Organization
• International Monetary Fund
• US Dept of Commerce
• University libraries and research
• Industry or professional organizations

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Marketing Knowledge

• Where do we find marketing intelligence? contd
• Privately generated data
• Firms
• Individuals
• Politicians
• Research firms
• Media firms
• Infomediaries
• Online databases
• Trailblazer Web sites aka index pages

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Marketing Knowledge

• Competitive intelligence - Analyzing the industry
  in which the firm operates to understand
  competitor vulnerabilities
• Sources of CI
• Press releases
• New product introductions
• Alliances
• Trade show activity
• Advertising strategy
• Annual reports
• Web sites linked to the competitor
• Web site logs
• Third party industry specific sites
• Company profiles from SEC
• User conversation

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Marketing Knowledge

• Information quality concerns
• Anyone can publish on the Web
• No review process
• No standards for content, accuracy,
  appropriateness
• Foreign sources
• Cultural differences
• Data collection methods
• Dont be seduced by good design!!!

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Marketing Knowledge

• Information quality concerns contd
• Discover the Web sites author
• Try to determine the authors authority on the
  topic
• Check for last update
• Check hyperlinks
• Determine comprehensiveness of site
• Try to validate research data with another source
• Check content accuracy
• Dont stop at the first good site you find!!!

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Marketing Knowledge

• Primary data Information gathered for the first
  time to solve a particular problem
• Pros
• Current
• More relevant to specific problem
• Proprietary
• Cons
• Expensive
• Time consuming

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Marketing Knowledge

• Primary data contd
• Internet-based research approaches
• Online experiments
• Attempt to test cause and effect relationships
• Exposing test groups to different stimuli
• Online focus groups
• Qualitative methodology
• Gathers in-depth information from small number of
  participants
• Pros
• Eliminates geographic barriers
• Reduces groupthink
• Cons
• Smaller groups
• Nonverbal communication is lost
• Authenticity problems
• Technical difficulties

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Marketing Knowledge

• Internet-based research approaches contd
• Online observation
• Monitors behavior
• Chat rooms
• Usenet
• Specialized search engines
• Provide space on Web site for discussion
• Subscribe to e-mail lists on related topics
• Cons
• Small number of subjects cannot establish
  relevance for a larger group

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Marketing Knowledge

• Internet-based research approaches contd
• Online in-depth interviews
• Semi-structured conversation with a few subjects
• Facilitator uses increasingly directed questions
  to narrow focus
• Cons
• Lose the personal interaction
• Online survey research
• Sending questionnaires to individuals via e-mail,
  Web posting or electronic bulletin board
• E-mail surveys
• Purchasing target e-mail lists
• Using firms own database of e-mail addresses
• Pros
• Inexpensive follow up
• Preferable in countries without unlimited access
• Cons
• Dependent on level of interest
• Sloppy responses

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Marketing Knowledge

• Internet-based research approaches contd
• Web surveys
• Posting questions on Web page
• Respondents use automated response mechanisms
• Often combined with other methods directing
  traffic to the site

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Marketing Knowledge

• Internet-based research approaches contd
• Online survey research advantages
• Fast and inexpensive
• Diverse group worldwide OR targeted niche
• Reduces errors
• Honest responses (anonymity)
• Access can be open or restricted
• Easy tabulation of data

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Marketing Knowledge

• Internet-based research approaches contd
• Online survey research disadvantages
• Sample selection/generalizability
• Self-selection bias
• Authenticity
• Dishonest responses
• Duplicate responses
• Steep learning curve to create surveys

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Marketing Knowledge

• Internet-based research approaches contd
• Online panels
• People who have agreed to participate in market
  research
• Pros
• Extensive data already available
• Increased response rates
• Better targeting
• Cons
• More expensive than other online research
• Generalizability problems

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Marketing Knowledge

• Internet-based research approaches contd
• Ethics of online research
• Spam
• Harvesting e-mail addresses without permission
• Selling under the guise of research
• Privacy issues

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Marketing Knowledge

• Other technology enabled approaches
• Client-side data collection
• Cookie A small data file placed on the users
  hard drive
• Clickstream PC meters used to track usage and
  surfing patterns
• Server-side data collection
• Web site log software Records user data on web
  server
• Real time profiling
• Real-space data collection
• Smart card and credit card readers
• Bar code scanners
• Inventory management
• Promotions

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Marketing Knowledge

• Marketing databases
• Product databases Hold data about inventory
  levels
• Customer databases Hold data about customer
  behavior
• Transaction processing databases Move data from
  other databases into a data warehouse
• Data warehouses
• Repository for all of a firms historical data
• Smaller sections are called data marts

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Marketing Knowledge

• Data analysis and distribution
• Data mining
• Extraction of hidden information by statistical
  analysis
• Search for patterns
• Customer profiling
• Understanding behavior and characteristics of
  target groups
• RFM analysis
• Recency
• Frequency
• Monetary value
• Report generation
• Automatic targeted reports from data warehouse on
  a regular basis