Marketing Management

The marketers watchwords are Quality, Service & Value

-Philip Kotler

“When you stop worrying about making money, and concern

yourself with taking care of the needs of your customers,
success will follow.”

Can we imagine a supermarket only selling to a customer onetime

and then having to look for a new customer for the next sale.
Ridiculous - is probably our polite response. Supermarkets work
very hard to keep their customers loyal and spending
repeatedly. Not only does the supermarket encourage the
customer to return and buy again but they also develop new
products to increase the amount of money the customer spends
in their store. Any successful business is always looking to
increase its penetration into its current customer base.

Coming up with new products and services can take a lot of work. It
also takes an understanding of how to set up - and we may
think why bother doing this. One reason is that we could
actually avoid losing our potential customers. If we don't offer
them other new products and services, they may seek out other
places that offer similar services related to yours. That's right!
If we don't offer new products, we can lose customers! So don't
just think of making a one-time sale only from our customers.
We have to think about keeping our customers for LIFE. It is
actually easier to resell to an existing customer than to close an
initial sale. Since our customer already trust us and provided
they have been satisfied with our after-sales service, they will
have no problem in buying from us again. So we know what we
must do to keep our existing customers happy and attract new
traffic to our site. Creating backend products and offers is much
easier than it looks - especially if we can watch someone else
showing the way.

Supermarkets hope to gain crucial information about their

customers purchase habits and increase profits by smart
marketing and reward programs.

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Techniques / tools to be used in Data Collection

Business organization generates and collects a large amount of data

in their daily operations. However, many companies fail to fully
capitalize on its value because information implicit in the data
is not easy to discern. Improving overall Data Collection is an
important tool for custom manufacturers. It’s about collecting
data not necessarily by product, but by process. A lot of
financial data that’s collected is ‘rear-view mirror.’ We need to
try to focus Data Collection in a more proactive way, to predict
future success.”

Observation method
Observation method is a method under which data from the field is
collected with the help of observation by the observer or by
personally going to the field. In the words of P.V. Young,
“Observation may be defined as systematic viewing, coupled
with consideration of seen phenomenon.”

Interview Method
This method of collecting data involves presentation or oral-verbal
stimuli and reply in terms of oral-verbal responses. There are
different types of interviews as follows:

Personal Interviews: - The interviewer asks questions generally in a

face to face contact to the other person or persons.
Telephonic Interviews: - When it is not possible to contact the
respondent directly, then interview is conducted through
Telephone.

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Structured Interviews: - In this case, a set of pre-decided questions

are there.
Unstructured Interviews: - In this case, we don’t follow a system of
pre-determined questions.
Focused Interviews: - Attention is focused on the given experience
of the respondent and its possible effects.
Clinical Interviews: - Concerned with broad underlying feelings or
motivations or with the course of individual’s life experience,
rather than with the effects of the specific experience, as in the
case of focused interview.
Group Interviews: - A group of 6 to 8 individuals is interviewed.
Qualitative And Quantitative Interviews: - Divided on the basis of
subject matter i.e. whether qualitative or quantitative.
Individual Interviews: - Interviewer meets a single person and
interviews him.
Selection Interviews: - Done for the selection of people for certain
jobs.
Depth Interviews: - It deliberately aims to elicit unconscious as well
as other types of material relating especially to personality
dynamics and motivations.

Questionnaire Method
This method of data collection is quite popular, particularly in case
of big enquiries. The questionnaire is mailed to respondents
who are expected to read and understand the questions and
write down the reply in the space meant for the purpose in the
questionnaire itself. The respondents have to answer the
questions on their own.

How to construct a questionnaire:

Researcher should note the following with regard to these three
main aspects of a questionnaire: General form Question
Sequence Determine the type the Questions:
Direct Question
Indirect Question
Open Form Questionnaire
Closed Form Questionnaire
Dichotomous Questions
Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ)

Survey Method

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Surveys can be of the following types – postal surveys, telephone

surveys, personal interviews etc. Postal surveys are low cost
but there is no control over the person actually filling the
questionnaire. This is useful when time is short but has the
disadvantage that questions which require some time to answer
won’t be effective. Personal interviews require some
preparation in the form of pilot visits to test out the
questionnaire.

Panel Method
In this method, data is collected from the same sample respondents
at the some interval either by mail or by personal interview.
This is used for studies on:
Expenditure Pattern
Consumer Behaviour
Effectiveness of Advertising
Voting Behaviour and so on.

Analysis of Data and Inferences

After data collection process is complete, the researcher has to

extract findings and inferences. For this, the researcher
tabulates the data and peforms frequency distribution
calculations and measures mean dispersions etc. He may also
use statistical techniques and decision models to obtain
additional inferences. Some of the tools used by the researcher
are:

Statistical Tools

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Multiple regression:
For finding best fitting equations of a dependant variable
which varies with changing values in a number of independent
variables. The inference obtained can estimate how unit sales
are influenced by changes in the level of company advertising
expenditures, sales force size and price.

Cluster Analysis:
A statistical technique used for seperating objects into a
specified number of mutually exclusive groups. For eg: This
can be used to classify a set of cities into a definite number of
groups.

Factor Analysis:
It is used for determining a few underlying factors of a larger
set of interrelated variables.

Models
Markov-process model:
This model shows the probability of moving from a current
state to any future state.

Queuing model:
This model shows the waiting times and queue lengths that
can be expected in any system given the arrival and service
times and the number of service channels. This can be used to
determine the waiting times involved in queues given the
number of service channels and service speeds.

Sales response model:

This is a set of models to estimate functional relationships
between one or more marketing variables.

Application of Market Research to increase sales and win

customers

S-Smile for Everyone

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E-Eye Contact
R-Reaching Out
V-Viewing Each Guest as Special
I-Initialing Pro-Active Service
C-Creating a Warm Atmosphere & A Genuine Concern in Satisfying Guest
Needs
E-Excellence in Everything We Do

The results of analysis show that the supermarket industry is

customizing operating strategies. Efficient consumer response
(ECR) standards are becoming a common method used to
increase the supermarket supply chain efficiencies that are
driving logistics trends within the industry. The trends include
expanded service requirements, mass customization, customer
loyalty and private labeling, delivery options and increased
challenges in diverse markets. Reverse logistics, electronic
point of sale data collection and management of supply chain
by third- and fourth-party logistics providers are also becoming
increasingly important for the supermarket industry.

Advancements in transportation and storage technologies, including

breakthrough technologies to improve supermarket operation
to the level of leading automobile manufacturers, present
increased challenges and opportunities to the supermarket
industry. In addition, changing consumer tastes offer
companies in developed countries as well as developing
countries like India, the chance to garner increased revenues. It
is imperative for supermarkets to heed changing buying habits,
particularly in developed countries, which have highly
mature/competitive markets. Although supermarkets within
developed and developing countries may face different
challenges, consumers everywhere still focus on value,
convenience, variety and a better shopping experience.

“Consider the audience,

Be concise, yet
complete
Be
objective, yet effective.”
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