Marketing Strategies, Planning, Research

Marketing Strategy: To be defined as segmentation,

target market selection and positioning.
Marketing Plan at tactical level: 4 Ps of marketing:
Product, Price, Promotion and Distribution.
Marketing Intelligence: Ongoing process of continuously
collecting information
Marketing Research: Clearly defined search for answers
to critical marketing decisions on strategic/tactical level.
MR: short-term project: defined time-schedule, budget,
clearly defined output, mostly outsourced, based on info
gap, action oriented.
Why does market share fall? Healthy lifestyle stressed
more in competitions advertising/ promotional campaign
MR short-term, MI long-term might already have come to
same conclusion. MI may be better handled in-house.
Types of MR
MR intermittent, based on info gap/need.
ORG-MARG, IMRB, Gallup-MBA
Strategic MR: demand forecasting, sales forecasting,
segmentation studies, identification of target markets for
a given product, identification of positioning strategies.
Tactical MR: product testing, pricing, advertising,
promotional, distribution and logistics-related research
Consumer buying habits for detergents, potential
demand for ready-to-eat chapatis in Mumbai city,
whether tulsi, coconut oil or neem would be preferred in
toilet soap, find out effectiveness of ad campaign for a
car brand, TV viewing preferences of target audience in
specific time slots in early and late evenings.
Typical Application Areas
Concept Research: fabric softener-cum whitener, follow with
Conjoint Analysis: specific levels of price or product/service
features to be offered pre-determined, reactions of consumers in
form of ratings given to each product concept combining various
features.
Product Research: Reaction of consumers to manual vs.
automatic cameras. Find out from existing users of photocopiers
whether after-sales service is satisfactory.
Such research can be conducted at various stages of Product
Life Cycle: introduction, growth, maturity and decline.
Pricing Research:
Newer discounting practices: buy-backs, exchange offers and
straight discounts for consumer durables: AKAI TV.
Most FMCG have offered variety of price-offs or premium-based
offers
More Application Areas
Functional as well as psychological role of price.
High price may mean high quality or high value.
Price elasticity through questions and simulations.
Questions regarding price very sensitive.
Experience required before appreciating consumer behaviour
regarding these issues.
Distribution Research:
Service levels provided by current channels
Frequency of salespeople visits to distribution points
Routing/ transport issues
Testing of new channels/channel displays
Advertising and Media Research
Copy Testing:
Brand Awareness, Brand recall, copy recall (at various time periods)
Price elasticity through questions and simulations.
Recall of different parts of the advertisement.
Tracking Studies:
Evaluate the effect of a campaign over long periods of time say 6
months/ 1 year.
Can alter advertising theme, content, media selection, frequency of
airing/ releasing advertisements.
Media Research:
Research into viewership of specific television programmes on
various TV channels.
Print Media: National Readership survey
Timings, Limitations, Differences in
Methodology
Information gap
Cost
Time
Judgment, Intuition, perceptions
Hot Shot
Combination required
Sampling method, sample size, representativeness of the
population, quality of field staff, conceptual skills in design and
interpretation
Complementary Inputs:
Premium/ value for money
Growth strategies, competitors strategies, regulatory moves

Primary and Secondary Research, Ethical
Considerations, Emerging Issues
Misuse for any other purpose
Badgering respondents on particular questions (income)
Confidentiality
Questions of personal nature
Fudging reports
Consumers right to privacy.
Online Research:
Email surveys
HTML forms
Downloadable interactive survey applications

Information Need, Research Objective,
Research Designs
The determination of customer satisfaction with a brand of new frost-
free refrigerators launched by our company
Broad vs. narrowly defined objectives
Newspapers: Survey, content analysis
Exploratory:
Ten most important variables used by consumers in deciding
whether to buy a chocolate brand
Focus group discussions among housewives to discuss the future of
convenience foods in India.
Generate hypothesis for further studies.
Surveys, focus groups, consultations with experts in the field,
analysis of selected studies

Descriptive and Causal Research (1)
Longitudinal Studies: Same sample
Consumer Panels: consumption of products/brands over a period of
time, viewership of TV shows, readership of magazines
Retail Store Audit: data being collected from stores
Advantages
Disadvantage: selection bias
Cross-sectional Design
Not affected by movement of elements in the sample
Causal Research
Designing Research Methodology
Research Method: primary and secondary
Sampling Plan
Questionnaire Design
Field Work Plan
Analysis Plan
Survey
Observation
Experimentation
Qualitative techniques
Other specialised techniques