3.3 – Decision Making to Improve Marketing Performance
Marketing Objectives
Examples of key marketing objectives:
Maintain or increase market share
NPD
Improve customer service
Enter a new market
Build a competitive advantage
Benefits: Drawbacks:
Useful measure of success Easy to be too ambitious with
marketing objectives
Prioritises use of resources Markets constantly evolve and data
quickly become outdated
Ensures functional activities are
consistent with corporate objectives
Marketing objectives are influenced externally be MEDICC, and internally by:
Business culture
Corporate objectives
Functional areas
1
,3.3 – Decision Making to Improve Marketing Performance
Primary and Secondary Research
Primary / field research – First hand data collection for the needs of the business.
Benefits: Drawbacks:
Tailored to the business’s needs Expensive
Trustworthy Time consuming
Kept private – away from Risk of bias
competitors
Methods of primary research:
Focus groups
Interviews
Surveys
Mystery Shoppers – Someone is employed incognito to assess the quality of goods or
services.
Product Testing – Small-scale launch of a new product to gather data on it in a test
market.
Secondary / desk research – Collecting data that already exists that was collected for a
different purpose.
Benefits: Drawbacks:
Quick and easy to collect Can quickly become outdated
Cheaper Not tailored to the business’s needs
Specialist reports can be expensive
Methods of secondary research:
Government produced data
Internet
Industry magazines
2
, 3.3 – Decision Making to Improve Marketing Performance
Quantitative and Qualitative Data
Market research is split into:
1. Collecting information
2. Analysing information
3. Making decisions based in this information
Quantitative data – Data that can be expressed numerically
Benefits: Drawbacks:
Easily spot trends Lack of detail
Quick and easy to analyse May lack reliability if sample size is
small
Easy to compare with competitors / Doesn’t explain trends
company history
Qualitative data – Opinions and views that cannot be expressed numerically
Benefits: Drawbacks:
More detail Harder to measure
Explains trends Biased questions may lead to biased
results
Focused on customer needs and Time consuming to collect and
wants analyse
3
Marketing Objectives
Examples of key marketing objectives:
Maintain or increase market share
NPD
Improve customer service
Enter a new market
Build a competitive advantage
Benefits: Drawbacks:
Useful measure of success Easy to be too ambitious with
marketing objectives
Prioritises use of resources Markets constantly evolve and data
quickly become outdated
Ensures functional activities are
consistent with corporate objectives
Marketing objectives are influenced externally be MEDICC, and internally by:
Business culture
Corporate objectives
Functional areas
1
,3.3 – Decision Making to Improve Marketing Performance
Primary and Secondary Research
Primary / field research – First hand data collection for the needs of the business.
Benefits: Drawbacks:
Tailored to the business’s needs Expensive
Trustworthy Time consuming
Kept private – away from Risk of bias
competitors
Methods of primary research:
Focus groups
Interviews
Surveys
Mystery Shoppers – Someone is employed incognito to assess the quality of goods or
services.
Product Testing – Small-scale launch of a new product to gather data on it in a test
market.
Secondary / desk research – Collecting data that already exists that was collected for a
different purpose.
Benefits: Drawbacks:
Quick and easy to collect Can quickly become outdated
Cheaper Not tailored to the business’s needs
Specialist reports can be expensive
Methods of secondary research:
Government produced data
Internet
Industry magazines
2
, 3.3 – Decision Making to Improve Marketing Performance
Quantitative and Qualitative Data
Market research is split into:
1. Collecting information
2. Analysing information
3. Making decisions based in this information
Quantitative data – Data that can be expressed numerically
Benefits: Drawbacks:
Easily spot trends Lack of detail
Quick and easy to analyse May lack reliability if sample size is
small
Easy to compare with competitors / Doesn’t explain trends
company history
Qualitative data – Opinions and views that cannot be expressed numerically
Benefits: Drawbacks:
More detail Harder to measure
Explains trends Biased questions may lead to biased
results
Focused on customer needs and Time consuming to collect and
wants analyse
3
