1.1.2 Market Research

Question 1

What is product orientation?

Answer 1

An approach to marketing that focuses on the characteristics of the product rather than the needs of the customer

Emphasis will be on creating a product first then finding the market

Question 2

What is one problem of a business being too product orientated?

Answer 2

Overtime your business may move further & further away from what the market is looking for
Increasing risk of business failure

Question 3

What is market orientation?

Answer 3

An approach to marketing that focuses on the needs of consumers & uses this information to design products that meet customer needs

consumers are at centre of marketing decisions

Question 4

Define market research.

Answer 4

The objective collection & analysis of information about a market

Market research data can be both quantitative or qualitative

Question 5

What is primary research?

Answer 5

• Research the business conducts for themselves- first hand and specific to the business

Question 6

What primary research methods are there?

Answer 6

• Surveys
• Questionaires
• Interviews
• Test marketing e.g free samples
• Focus groups

Question 7

What are the advantages & disadvantages of primary research?

Answer 7

Advantages:
* Information gathered is focused on needs of the business & will not be avaliable to rivals
* Primary market research is more up-to date & can be used to ask specific questions

Disadvantages:
* Sample size may be too small & unrepresentitive of all customers
* Bias may mean that researchers can guide respondants to answer questions in a particular way

Question 8

What is secondary research?

Answer 8

Gathering data that already exists

e.g. purchasing market reports from specialist companies

Question 9

What methods of secondary research are there?

Answer 9

• Government sources
• Trade publications
• Market reports
• Internet sources

Question 10

What are the advantages & disadvantages of secondary market research?

Answer 10

Advantages
* Information is already avaliable-quickert to collect & saves time
* Information is often free (e.g. government websites) & is cheaper to collect leading to lower costs compared to PR

Disadvantages
* Info has been collected for other purposes so may lack relevance or may not factually be correct
* Info may be out of date
* Can be expensive to obtain

Question 11

How does the use of ICT support market research?

Answer 11

Company websites
* Allow businesses to collect primary data more cheaply
Databases
* Used to store large amounts of customer information
Social networking
* Gathers information about consumers via online social channels

Question 12

What is market segmentation?

Answer 12

• Process of which a single market is divided into sub markets or ‘segments’

Each segment represents a slightly different set of consumer characteristics

Question 13

What ways are there to segment a market?

Answer 13

Location
Lifestyle
Income
Demographics

Question 14

What are the benefits of market segmentation?

Answer 14

• Meets customers needs and wants more effectively
• Products can be altered to meet different needs of different groups of consumers & targeted more precisely
• Less expensive & wasteful than marketing products at wide market segments

Question 15

What are the drawbacks of market segmentation?

Answer 15

• Not everyone with a segment will behave in the same way
• May be difficult to identify a segment as consumers can belong to multiple segments at the same time

Question 16

What does market research depend on?

Answer 16

Depends on the response of customers who participate e.g customers that take the time to fill in the survey