Nature and Scope of the Marketing-Information Management Function
The marketing-information management function is all about businesses collecting information about the customers in their target market to make decisions about their respective products and services. They recognize that by understanding consumers, expanding choices, understanding competition, and the global marketplace will help them make better decisions. Customers will not simply pruchase products because a business produces them. Discretionary purchases are not essential, so consumers can decide whether or not to purchase them.
Information Monitored for Marketing Decision Making
Different information is monitored for different marketing decisions. It is split into three main categories of consumers, maketing mix, and the business environment. Consumer information that is monitored is information about age, gender, income, education, and family size. Marketing mix information that is monitored is information about basic products, product features, services, product packaging, and guarantees. Business environment information that is monitored is information about type of competition, competitors' strengths and strategies, economic conditions, and government regulations. There are many more types of infomation needed for effective marketing decisions for each category.
Common Sources of Internal and External Marketing Information
For business people to determine the information they need and where to obtain it they need to go through a five step process. It is to identify the types of information needed, determine the available sources of each type of information, evaluate each source to determine if it meets the organization's needs in terms of accuracy, time, detail, and cost. Internal information is information developed from activities that occur within the organization. Customer records and sales information has to do with information about each specific customer like what they have purchased. Productions and operations reports has to do with how to make the business more time and cost efficient. Performance indication can be judged off customer satisfaction or sales. External information provides an understanding of factors outside of the organization. Government reports create reports based off of collected data over time. Trade and professional organizations are for people with similar interests. Business publications involve media like magazines. Commercial data and information services are businesses that sell information to people.
Critical Elements of an Effective Marketing Information System
A marketing information system (MkIS) is an organized method of collecting, storing, analyzing, and retrieving information to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing decisions. Small and large businesses manage information with computers and sometimes a staff, but the information has to be complete, accurate, easy to use, timely, afforable, and cost-effective. The five elements below are how to design the marketing information system.
-Input- Input is the information that goes into the system that is needed for decision making. This information comes from customers, competitors, and business operations to find information that marketers will then use to make decisons for the business.
-Storage- Storage involves the resources used to maintain information, including equipment and procedures, so that it can be used when needed. The information needs to be stores and organized for future use. The information must be located correctly.
-Analysis- Analysis is the process of summarizing, combining, or comparing information so that decisions can be made. This is where the decisions are made for planning for the future as well as things like promotional budgets being constructed.
-Output- Output is the result of analysis given to decision makers. This is the most important element as most people will never see the previous three. This is ususally portrayed through written information or graphics to present the data collected.
-Decision Making- These decisions should be made quickly if the MkIS is well-designed. Some decisons are routine while others are not. More people will make decisions on complicated topics.
-Input- Input is the information that goes into the system that is needed for decision making. This information comes from customers, competitors, and business operations to find information that marketers will then use to make decisons for the business.
-Storage- Storage involves the resources used to maintain information, including equipment and procedures, so that it can be used when needed. The information needs to be stores and organized for future use. The information must be located correctly.
-Analysis- Analysis is the process of summarizing, combining, or comparing information so that decisions can be made. This is where the decisions are made for planning for the future as well as things like promotional budgets being constructed.
-Output- Output is the result of analysis given to decision makers. This is the most important element as most people will never see the previous three. This is ususally portrayed through written information or graphics to present the data collected.
-Decision Making- These decisions should be made quickly if the MkIS is well-designed. Some decisons are routine while others are not. More people will make decisions on complicated topics.
Steps Needed to Gather and Study Secondary Data Relevant to a Problem
One thing used to develop a data-collection procedure is by the use of secondary data. Secondary data is information already collected for another purpose that can be used to solve the current problem. After reviewing the situation and the available information, the researcher can decide what additional information is needed and how it should be collected. Examples of secondary data include company records, government reports, studies completed by colleges and universities, information from industry trade associations and other business groups, and research reported in magazines. The other option of collecting primary data which is information collected for the first time to solve the problem being studied. To implement a marketing research study somone would need to define the problem, analyze the situation, develop a data-collection procedure, gather and study information, and propose a solution.
Different Ways of Collecting Primary Data
There are three main ways to collect primary data. They are conducting surveys, making observations, and performing experiments. A survey is a planned set of questions to which individuals or groups of people respond. They can be done in many ways. Closed-ended questions are questions that offer two or more choices as answers. Open-ended questions are questions that allow respondents to develop their own answers without additional information about possible choices. A foucs group is a small number of people brought together to discuss identified elements of an issue or problem. Observation collects information by recording actions without interacting or communicating with the participant. It can be done without somone physically watching sometone. Experiments are carefully designed and controlled situations in which all important factors are the same except the one being studied. These are used on a select number of customers to predict their actions on a larger scale. Test markets are specific cities or geographic areas in which marketing experiments are conducted. Simulators are experiments when reseachers create the situation to be studied.
Role of Situational Analysis in the Marketing-Planning Process
Analyzing the situation allows the researcher to identify what is already known about the problem, the information currently available, and even the possible solutions that have already been attempted. Someone must understand the problem well enough to determine how to solve it as this is a part of scientific problem solving. The researcher reviews available information and gathers information from people who might have ideas of additional information. Past studies can help dedice how to approach the problem. A careful situational analysis by itself may result in identification of a solution, and the study will come to an end.
Interpret and Report Out Descriptive Stats for Marketing Decision Making
The purpse of a marketing information system is to improve decision making. The decision incudes who is involved, when the decisions need to be made, any policies and procedures that should be considered, and the information needed by the decison makers. An examle using statistics would be that an office supply store shows low inventory levels of paper, and a computer analysis program determines that two hundred cases of paper are needed. It will search the vendors to find the lowerst possible price. Other decisions that aren't as routine would involve more people in the process. Refer to the section above for any extra decision-making related information.
SWOT Analysis
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