Question

CHAPTERS 5&6 TEXTBOOK ESSENTIAL HEALTH CARE MARKETING FOURTH EDITION.

Do not use other internet sources for your answers.

1. Which are the five steps included in Marketing Research? List and briefly describe each one.

2. What is MIS (Marketing Information System) and what is its connection to Database Marketing?

3. Markets can be segmented in a variety of ways. List and describe 3 of them.

4. List and briefly describe the 5 criteria for successful selection of market segments.

Answer 1

Answer 1

1. Define the Problem: Establish research objectives and develop questions. This is the most important step of any market research exercise
2. Develop Your Plan: Design a research plan & incorporate methods by keeping their costs in mind by:
   1. Interviewing prospective customers
   2. Running surveys
   3. Online research
   4. Testing user activities on website
3. Collect relevant data & Information: Use the methods mentioned above to get relevant data from multiple perspectives. The desired type of information to gather would be analytical/scientific as well as emotional data.
4. Analyze Data & Report Observations: Interpret the data, identify trends, correlation between multiple attributes & variables, decision influencers, user preferences by being unbiased and impartial
5. Take Action: Present findings & develop a marketing plan around the observations.

Answer 2

A Marketing Information System or MIS is a set of methods & functions designed to formally gather, store, and analyze the marketing data to be then distributed to managers on a continuous, on-demand basis in order to be used in decision making process. The MIS is composed of the following modules:

1. User Interfaces for data visualization
2. Application software, used for collecting, analyze and manage the market data
3. Database marketing, in which the marketing data files are analyzed & stored
4. System support to maintain hardware & software resources of the MIS

Database Marketing is a key component in an MIS which makes use of direct marketing in order to analyze the potential customer behavior & generate personalized communications & promotions. It heavily makes use of data warehouses & statistical modeling techniques to generate customer profile & behaviour in order to find correlating variables & pitch promotions. There are 2 major types of marketing databases; Consumer databases & business databases

Answer 3

The following are 3 ways to segment a market:

1. Demographic segmentation: This segments the market based on customer's demographic information like age, gender, race, religion, income, occupation, etc.
2. Behavioral Segmentation: This segments the population based on customer attitudes, product knowledge, response rate, usage statistics, loyalty status, etc.
3. Geographic Segmentation: This segments the population based on countries, states, regions, cities, postal codes, etc.

Answer 4

The following are the 5 criterion for successful market segmentation:

1. Measurable: Market segments are usually measured in terms of sales value or volume (i.e. customer count/segment). A successful market segmentation exercise should be able to identify the size of a market segment with a reasonable accuracy.
2. Substantial: A viable market segment is usually a homogenous group with clearly defined attributes like age, gender, loyalty status and brand perception. The market segment should be significant enough in size to justify spending efforts & also have longevity with respect to a stable customer group that is unlikely to disperse, or change beyond recognition in short term.
3. Accessible: While forming a market segment, it is important to consider how the group could be accessed or approached feasibly by the company's marketing department since different segments might respond better a variety of approaches like outdoor advertising, social media campaigns, television infomercials, etc.
4. Differentiable: An ideal market segment should be internally homogeneous (i.e. all customers within the segment have similar attributes and preferences), but externally heterogeneous.
5. Actionable: The market segment must have practical, quantifiable value such that its characteristics must provide supporting data for a marketing position or sales approach with measurable outcomes.