Marketing Research

Process of Marketing Research

Researching the Market

The Micro-Environment Competitor, Supplier
& Distributor Analysis
The Macro-Environment Socio Cultural, Economic,
Political, Legal and Natural Environments
Customer Research Demographics, Lifestyle, On
and Offline Buyer Behaviour, Motivational studies &
Web Metrics
The Marketing Mix Elements Product, Price, Place
& Promotion (Goods)- People, Physical & Process
(Services) especially relevant to online offerings

The Marketing Research Trade-Off

Cost

Accuracy

Speed

Online Marketing Research

Research conducted online
Research conducted about the online consumer
Data sources can be internal or external

Online Marketing Research

Secondary Research
Data collected for purposes that are not specific to the study at
hand
Secondary sources of data
E.g., External databases

Primary Research
Data collected for the purposes of the study at hand

External Secondary Data

Search Engines
Economic Data Global Insight

Other Websites
E.g., blogs

Databases
News Aggregators LexisXexis
Company Financial Information D&B
Legal, Tax & Regulatory Thomson
Market Research Mintel

Newsgroups

Internal Data via Web Metrics

(Primary or Secondary)

Sales per visitor

Cost per visitor

Conversion rates

Length of site visits

Pages visited

Numbers failing to complete shopping cart to checkout

processes

Responses to campaigns and incentives

Some Strengths & Weaknesses in

Online Marketing Research

Strengths
Speed of accessing
information
Cost effective
Quality and quantity of
information is evolving
Growing consumer confidence
online is improving response
and completion rates
Multimedia formats provide
greater creativity and flexibility

Weaknesses
Sample populations are not
representative
Self selection bias
Online sources maybe of
dubious reliability
Some survey methods e.g.
Pop-ups, cause irritation
Problems of reach due to
issues like changing e-mail
addresses

Common Online
Primary Research Activities

Advertising Research (incl. Content Analysis, Banner

Ads etc.)

All aspects of web site evaluation

Partner and Reseller satisfaction surveys

Online Focus Groups

Usability Testing

Stages in the Marketing Research

Process

Define the research required

Identify research objectives
Design the research
Gather Data
Internal Secondary Data
External Secondary Data
Analyze Data
Present Findings

Primary Data
Quantitative
Qualitative

Quantitative

Hits

One of the earliest metrics

Captures the number of times people access a page or its graphics in
a specified period of time
Simple to track and interpret
Weaknesses
the number of hits on a website can be misleading
the number of people visiting a website is a fraction of the hits
registered
do not capture the demographics of the user population
do not capture the nature of users online experience
do not capture anything about purchase decisions

Clickstream

Captures the path a visitor takes when navigating a website

What pages are visited and in what order
How long it takes for a page to load
How often a user hits the back button of the computer
Which page serves as the exit point in the navigation of the Website

Captures entry and exit points, shopping cart activity, conversion activity
What items are moved to the cart and back
What items are purchased
How much time is spent on each activity

Click Through

Click through measures how many visitors select a banner ad and visit the
subsequent page
click rate captures the number of times an online banner ad is clicked
and divides it by number of times the ad is posted
conversion rate takes the number of product purchasers and divides it
by the number of online advertisement viewers

Weaknesses
do not reveal information about demographics and purchasing decisions
clickstream data or related measures rarely correlate with purchase
rates
does little to investigate the factors influencing someone to move beyond
exposure to actual purchase

Consumer Behaviors
User Concern analysis:
To provide information for managerial decision-making
Understand viewers needs

Website Records Analysis

Web Log
Visitors
Page-views

Impressions
Captures the number of times an advertising banner is
seen
These are usually tracked via server log files

Weaknesses
there is no industry standard for counting impressions
a single web page can contain multiple ads, a site might register
more impressions per unit of time than web pages viewed per
unit of time
cached pages

Visits
Visits measure the total number of people visiting a website in a specified period
of time
visitors server name, IP address, type of web browser, and visit length
where visitors come from, their flow through a website (i.e., clickstream), and
note the links through which they leave the site
Unique visitors (e.g., through cookies)
Weaknesses
is that if someone visits a web page multiple times during the given period,
each one is counted as a separate visitor, potentially biasing estimates
no purchase information

Stickiness

Stickiness measures total amount of time a customer spends on a single

site
is meant to measure website attractiveness
rationale for stickiness is that the time spent on the site is directly
proportional to a website's appeal
average minutes per month visitors spend at a site

Weaknesses
a consumer might spend a lot of time on a site because he/she cannot
figure out how the site is arranged or how to discover his/her desired
information

Registration

Registration is a way in which to track user demographics

this method can create data for a customer database that can be used
to generate interface/content personalization and facilitate purchase
(cf., Amazon.com's one-click shopping feature)
free access to content for personal information

Weaknesses
the same user can use different user names and log-in ids
masque identities
misleading data

Web Surveys

Respondent participation is solicited

E-mail questionnaires
Web questionnaires
pop-up surveys
can reach a limitless number of respondents within a few hours at a
significantly lower cost than the traditional mail approach

Weaknesses
the data rely primarily on recall of past experience
fails to capture consumer behavior as it occurs in real time
consumers often confuse pop-up surveys with advertising
pop-up surveys may disrupt the purchasing process

WebQual
Website
Quality
Various Dimensions

WebQual
EASE OF USE
Ease of Understanding
Intuitive Operations

USEFULNESS

Informational Fit-to-task
Interactivity
Trust
Response Time

WebQual
ENTERTAINMENT
Visual Appeal
Innovativeness
Flow Emotional Appeal

COMPLEMENTARY RELATIONSHIP
Consistent Image
Online Completeness
Better than Alternative Channels

Service Quality
Tangibles:
Appearance of the physical facilities, equipment,
personnel and communication materials.
Reliability:
Ability to perform the promised service
dependably and accurately.
Responsiveness:
Willingness to help customers and provide
prompt service.
Assurance:
Knowledge and courtesy of employees and their
ability to convey trust and confidence.
Empathy:
Caring, individualized attention the firm provides its
customers.

E-ServQual
E-Commerce
Service
Quality

E-ServQual
EFFICIENCY
Easy to Find
Easy to Navigate
Organized

SYSTEM AVAILABILITY
Available for Business
Does not Crash

E-ServQual
FULFILLMENT
Delivers Orders
Availability of items
Truthfulness

RESPONSIVENESS

Return Policy
FAQ
Compensation
Contact Information

Marketing Implications of Different

Levels of Involvement (Online and Offline)
High-Involvement Purchase and Consumption
Complex purchase process by highly involved consumers
Attention is increased and more importance is attached to the
stimulus object.
Low-Involvement Purchase and Consumption
Minimal decision making for low-involvement products
Attention is low and less importance is attached to the stimulus
object

Involvement as a Segmentation Variable

(Online and Offline)

Brand loyalists
Those who are highly involved both with the product category
and with particular brands.
Information seekers
Those who are highly involved with a product category but
who do not have a preferred brand.
Routine brand buyers
Those who are not highly involved with the product category
but are involved with a particular brand in that category.
Brand switchers
Those who are not involved with the product category or with
particular brands.

Survey Errors
Coverage error
Sampling Error
Non-Response Error
Measurement Error

Qualitative

Netnography
Netnography adapts traditional, anthropological ethnographic research
techniques
study of cultures and communities emerging in computer-mediated
communications
study of cyberculture, which is defined as "the shared patterns of
behavior and their associated symbolic meanings expressed through
computer mediated communications
Web questionnaires
data include research field notes and cultural artifacts, such as
newsgroup postings, emails, and digital photographs
less expensive than traditional ethnographic techniques, and behavior
that is specific to the medium is obtained

Focus Groups
Respondent participation is solicited
Unstructured
Reach (i.e., location of the respondent is not an issue)
Easy to set up
Cost-effective and a potential source for rich data
Saves time (and provides ready transcript)
Weaknesses
Difficult to moderate and control
No access to respondent facial expressions and body language
Few respondents may dominate the session

Blogs and Chat-rooms

Blog
Public Chat rooms
Discussion Groups

Usability Studies

Usability studies examine consumers' actual usage of a product

a useful technique for measuring the quality of a consumer's
experience when interacting with a website
learn about consumer experiences for improving website design
compare a firm's website against its competitors

Weaknesses
costly
slow and time-consuming
requires highly trained personnel

Other Consumer Behaviors

Viewers Browsing Behavior
Viewers behavior model
Effectiveness of ads
Relationship between groups and products

Membership statistics
Basis for the decisions
Critical activity analysis

Discover the Whys

These reasons hold the key to future actions
E.g., A company experienced a significant change in their
e-mail bounce rates
The reason was that one ISP was rejecting any e-mail messages of a
certain size that were sent in bulk
The company started dispatching e-mails at intervals instead of in
bulk

Test Alternatives
Lets say you are the marketing manager at the B2C company, and
you are tasked with bringing in incremental revenue by acquiring more
new customers and generating greater revenue from all customers
Your baseline success hurdle is an average order value of $100 per
customer
you know that one of the programs that worked best for you in the past
was a buy one, get one free offer to a segment of your customers.
Now try to better that result.
Change the offer perhaps to a 50% off coupon. Run an A/B split test
to the same audience to see which offer fares better.

Test Alternatives

Create A/B test cells for your customer segment

The A group gets the buy one, get one free offer and
The B group gets the 50% off coupon
All other variables the creative, the timing, the From line, etc. will
remain constant across both cells

When you get your results, look specifically at your key data
point:
Average order value (AOV) per customer

Which offer achieved the higher AOV? How about the highest
revenue?

More Questions?