Hello all, today I'll teach to how to manage the marketing information, as information is very important for our business & we must manage that very carefully.
This post is all about managing marketing information, uh that can help you to gain customer insights, uh in simple and short words it is about marketing research now marketing research is one of the most important component of marketing discipline.
So let's have a look and let's have an overview of what exactly does this chapter hold the marketing research.
Like I said before it is a key prerequisite to a successful decision making, if you do not have proper marketing research done.
You cannot make a good marketing plan because, marketing research it helps managers to develop marketing strategies.
It helps managers to develop a good marketing plan and once the marketing plan is good, it is more efficient and effective and that's how they can satisfy their customers.
Now if you follow these two rules that defines all of the marketing research that happens within an organization.
So the first one is know what the "Information is for"
So that is the most important thing that as a marketeer as a marketing research assistant you need to know, that what exactly the information which you are gathering it is for.
So if you are trying to gather the information in the dark and you don't know what exactly is, the purpose behind it what is, the problem that information is no good at all, for anyone in the organization.
And the second one is ask the right questions the right way
If you know the problem but you're not asking the right questions, the right way that information is going to go waste. So these two are the most important rules of doing on conducting marketing research.
Now marketing research of course itself it does not have any value at all, it's just the data and once you once you analyze the data, it provides you the real value of that data.
That is actually called "customer insights"
Now the real value is in customer insights, which are gained from the information collected and how decisions are being made. So once you have marketing research data, you analyze it you convert it into a form, which can be read by marketing managers and that form is called customer insights.
Because data actually gives you insights about the customers, about the prospect customers also which are either going to sell your product to or which you have sold the product and what exactly do they need in the future.
You also try to find that out customer inside is the current understanding of customer needs via marketing information like I said before there is a lot of information about a customer there's.
A lot of information which is available, but marketeers they need better information and how to make better use of that information these are the two important things for a marketeer.
So as a marketer first of all your goal should be to get the better information out, you do not need like I always use the word chaotic information.
You need a better information, whatever you need it, directly relates with the problem, so if you have a good problem, if you have defined the problem well, you will know what type of information do you want and how to make use of that information.
So if the information is good but you do not know how to make use of it, then that information is going. It's actually going to go to the waste and that isn't going to be useful to you as a marketeer.
For example Metro or walmart both of these companies are huge in terms of their footprint, they are giant retailers, they have thousands of customers data, they have thousands of products data what exactly do they do with, it now that is a question which i'm going to leave you with it.
And you think about it stop the reading the post for a while then you think about it that it is true, they have thousands and thousands and millions of customers data in their database.
But what exactly do they do with it think about it and write in the comment section what do you think that they do with that particular data.
Now customer insights are also fresh and deep insights into customer needs and wants like I told you before it is difficult to obtain 100.
It is not obvious data because, you are unsure about the customer's behavior, so you need to be very careful about customers behavior when you are obtaining the data and we will talk about it just in a while in detail later on.
So it is not derived from more information but better information and it's more effective use of existing information and both of these things classify and fall under customer insights.
Now if you move forward a bit after customer insight, so first of all let me review it again you have conducted marketing research, you've got the data and you analyze the data you have taken out customer insights, which is actually better information.
Now what exactly are you going to do with information, now there's a term called "marketing information system"
You will hear this term a lot especially now, because it has been implemented everywhere, information systems within an organization what exactly does marketing information system stands for.
It consists of people and procedures why do we do it, it is used for assessing information needs of an organization of marketing managersfirst of all, secondly developing the needed information which is required by marketing managers and thirdly it helps the decision makers who are of course marketing managers.
To use the information for a customer, so there are three different tasks of MIS or marketing information system, firstly it develops the need or assess the need of information which is required by marketing managers.
Secondly it develops that information which is required and thirdly it helps the decision makers by analyzing that whole information it gives them the information and based on that information, the marketing managers decide what sort of plan they want to develop.
Going back to that walmart or metro example now think about again what exactly metro and walmart are doing with thousands of customers data.
Keeping MIS in your mind, so MIS provides information to the company's marketing, like I said and other managers and external partners also at times.
For example suppliers, resellers, marketing service agencies and the data is about and the information is about the customers or maybe some other things also.
You never know at times you need information about the distribution about logistical channels you need to know, how trucks move from one place to another place.
So all of that information it is being stored in marketing information system, that's an overview of MIS. If you go step by step you assess the information needs.
First of all you find out what exactly does marketing manager want, so if you look at the arrow on top it's marketing managers or other information users, but we won't go into this detail.
So marketing managers are the one who give information about what sort of information do they want to MIS people, now marketing information system the second step is that that information is being developed.
Now how is it being developed, first of all based on internal databases. Internal databases are made up of target markets marketing channels, sort of suppliers I would say competitors, competition information, publics and macro environment forces.
Second sort or source of information in the second step is "Marketing Intelligence"
I will talk about it just in a while and the third one is marketing research, which an organization conduct themselves in order to gain information and data about their customers and in the end once they have the needed information.
They analyze the data and they provide the data to again back to the marketing manager, so that they can make important decisions and they can implement those insights into marketing plan.
So marketeers they obtain information from internal data like, I said before marketing intelligence and marketing research what are these each term actually mean now.
Internal databases are electronic collections of consumer and market information obtained from data sources within the company network.
So all those forces and if I go back on that slide again all these target market market channels competitors, publics and macro environment forces, all this information is available within our organization.
So they actually collect data internal databases is a source, which already had information from company network and the data is being stored and data then is being retrieved in order to make it an information, which is useful for marketing manager.
Second type of information is marketing intelligence, let's have a look at the definition first "it is the systematic collection analysis of publicly available information, about consumers competitors and developments in the marketplace".
But this is a good definition certainly but in my personal experience of working for organizations marketing intelligence basically, means that it's sort of.
It is actually sort of like spying on other companies sometimes, the spying is visible that you are searching at night their website, you're searching different resources, their youtube channel, their digital marketing strategies and based on that you are creating a portfolio of your competitor.
Sometimes which is not an ethical practice, sometimes you are tasked by your company to be hired in the competitor company and you go over there and media companies that do that a lot you are an employee of the other media house and you feed data from that media house to your real employer.
So if there is a news which is going to be aired on one news channel, where you're working you tell about that news to the other news channel and that's how they have the competitive edge as compared to the other news channels.
So marketing intelligence is certainly an important aspect of marketing information and it is usually collected without telling the competitor organization that we are collecting data.
The third one is "Marketing Research", straightforward you do a systematic research you collect data based on different methods.
We'll look up look at it just in a while and you analyze that data based on that you develop a report and you give that river to the marketing manager and based on that the marketing managers, they make decisions which are very important in order for their marketing plan to be successful.
So the steps in marketing research first of all you need to define the problem research objectives, that's the most important step if you have and if you know what exactly is the problem and you developed a good research objectives.
Your marketing research plan is going to be very good also, then you develop a marketing research plan you implement the research plan which actually means collecting and analyzing the data and then you interpret so you have analyzed the data.
But based on that you need to convert it into a readable form, for marketing managers and you remember this thing then maybe at times you will feel that marketing managers, that they are not really good in reading statistical data which is not actually good.
So you need to interpret that into easy language for them, managerial language I would actually call it and so that they can use that data and again improve their marketing plan.
Same thing it starts with the management problem you convert into research objectives, you convert into then information needed how results will help management decisions.
You need to keep that thing in your mind is the most important thing and what are the budgets, you need to put that in your research plan also very quickly, there are two different types of data in your marketing research project.
First is secondary which you actually collect from already existent sources and that data is usually collected for another purposes and you just simply reuse the data for your own project.
The second one is primary data that you actually collected yourself by using some research tool, which we will study just in a while.
So example of secondary data is data available on statistical websites on world bank on asian development bank, there are different statistical organizations within a country, that provides you data about trends in the market, about their age, about gender segregation.
So you use that data and based on that you develop a research report and primary data is the data which you collect yourself. So you collect it either by doing observational research, which is you basically involved gathering primary data by observing relevant people and relevant organization.
Or you do ethnographic research that involves sending train observers, to watch and interact with consumers in their natural environment.
The example for that is and observational research and ethnographic research, somehow they relate to each other, so the example could be that a research organization has sent a data collector to a supermarket.
And that data collector is standing on the entrance and whenever someone is entering he or she is writing down notes by observing that particular customer, that are they alone, if they have kids, how much they have bought, how much time they have spent.
Which section they have gone to in the first place, have they gone in the vegetable sections, have they gone to the bread section, so all of these things they are watching and then they are writing down on a piece of paper.
The difference between observational, ethnographic comes in that in ethnographic research, the data collector interact with the customer also whereas in observational research, the data collector does not interact.
So they just write down in observational research but, in ethnographic they also interact so remember your experience when you go to the supermarket at times.
You will find out that there is a person who come to you and they ask you questions that how's your shopping experience, why did you come over here, how often do you come here, those are called ethnographic researchers.
Survey research is the most common method which is used everywhere, you go you find a piece of paper in front of you and that piece of paper has certain questions and those questions are being asked to you and you just simply answer and then they are converted into a numeric form in the back end.
And that has then analyzed focus group is a type of research, where six to ten people are sitting in a room and a trained moderator ask them a question.
So if I have to give you an example, the best example is from a television industry, so whenever they launch a new tv series, they do focus groups show an episode to six to ten people, who are sitting in a room.
And after the episode has been finished during the episode they are watching them and once the episode is finished a moderator start asking them questions and it's a very good method and those people who have watched the episode, they give their honest reply.
If it is good if, it is not good, what could be improved, so all of these things are important and focus group. I personally like it a lot and the data is in the form of words, not in the form of number.
Now if you remember in the beginning of this chapter, I ask you a question about walmart and metro and what do they do with thousands of customers data.
Now CRM is a concept which is very commonly used in a lot of organization, so what exactly is CRM is, "Customer Relationship Management".
It is a sophisticated software and analytical tools that integrate customer information from all sources, analyze it in depth and apply the results to build stronger customer relationships.
So all of that information which is coming from customer purchases, from salesforce contact, salesforce contact me, that guy who has met you in a supermarket and asked you do you need anything, do you need my help service and sport calls, so you bought a television you don't like it or there's a problem, you give a call all of that is being recorded in CRM.
Which is called, which is actually a software website visits, you have visited that particular website about a product satisfaction surveys, which they have collected from you credit and payment instructions or interactions.
Sorry so credit interactions or payment interactions are that when you bought a product and you have given them the money that particular transaction has been stored in the system.
So it's not happening out of the blue and that has been stored in the system and then research studies which that organization have conducted.
Now you can ask me a question over here that when I go to a supermarket and about by all these things how do they know that which type of payment interaction or credit interaction they have done they have done with me last time.
Do you or have you seen loyalty cards, have you seen those cars which you need to buy in order to shop at a particular supermarket, so when you buy those cars, you give your information to them then, my name is this, this is my age, this is my address.
So whenever you go to the super supermarket, the organization the supermarket gives you discount if you use that card so what happened is that when you swipe that card, they have the data already what is your name and what is your age, what is your gender.
So they see what have you bought, how often do you buy that particular thing, a sales force man is talking to you whenever you call them, you give them that particular card number and also they see that the last time.
When you came and bought something what sort of payment method did you use and how much did you spend and based on that they send you survey forms in order to fill that, if you are satisfied.
And they do other research studies, so that's how and that's why they collect all of the data and they give you that loyalty card, that whenever you shop use this card and give you 10% discounts.
So by using all of these information touch points and by using all of this information marketing managers they go back and they develop a marketing plan which is good which is implementable and which is efficient and effective.
So that's it for today, we will be back with new lesson & topic next time. If you like it, please do share it with your friends & others too.
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