Marketing

Students Name

Institution

A pharmaceutical manufacturer followed sales representatives in the field to observe some 150 interactions between sales reps and physicians and support staff. They watched sales reps approach the doctors, how they got around their gatekeepers, how they delivered their brands’ messages, and so forth. These observations led to improvements in training new reps. In what category of research would this study fall? Provide advantages and disadvantages of this category of research. What would be the next step in the marketing research process? Category of Research in which the study falls

It is clear that the pharmaceutical company was involved in observation technique which falls under the qualitative research methodology. This is because the pharmaceutical company sales representatives were involved in observing the doctors being approached by sales representatives who had to go round gatekeepers to deliver their messages. Observation is a very innate as well as a demanding qualitative data collection paradigm. Some of the advantages and disadvantages of Qualitative research are outlined below (Denzin and Lincoln, 2010).

Advantages of Qualitative Research Method

Qualitative research methodology derives its strength from its capacity to provide intricate textual descriptions of how researchers do experience a certain research issue. Secondly, it offers information on the human side of a phenomenon thus means: the overly contradictory individual’s relationships, behaviors, emotions, beliefs and opinions. Thirdly, qualitative research methodology is very effective in the identification of intangible factors such as gender roles, religion, social norms, ethnicity, and socio economic status (Denzin and Lincoln, 2010).

In addition, qualitative research method provides more in depth details about a phenomenon of research this is because it digs deeper than evaluating counts and ranks through recording behaviors, attitudes and feelings. Fifthly, it tends to simulate the individual experiences of participants; in the end through qualitative research it is possible to build a detailed perception on why people act the way they do and their attitudes towards their behaviors. Finally, it tends to steer clear of pre judgments by explaining why certain assessments are provided (Denzin and Lincoln, 2010).

Disadvantages of Qualitative Research

The gathering and analysis of qualitative data is time consuming and thus very expensive. Secondly, the fact that it uses very few participants as samples makes classical researchers not to embrace it. Thirdly, the researcher is usually a participant in qualitative research through observation and thus bias in the final analysis is unavoidable. Fourthly, it has a comprehensive and in depth approach to the collection of data which limits its scope. Fifthly, Qualitative methodology does not involve the formulation of statistical data. Apart from that, qualitative data findings cannot be generalized over a wider population. Lastly, given that it is more time consuming, it tends to use a small number of participants to avoid budgetary constraints (Denzin and Lincoln, 2010).

The Next Step in the Marketing Research Process

The next step in the marketing research would be to take the observed data into the research office and try to integrate the observed phenomena into its physical context in order to understand their behaviors before coming up with sound conclusions about them.

A large international rental car company decides to develop a customer retention program. The program’s goal is to motivate its heavy users to continue being loyal to the company by offering them appropriate incentives. Create a marketing research plan to help the company design the retention program. Specifically, you need to identify:

1). Why this program is important. 2). The type of information the company needs to design the retention program. 3). Where to get this information. A Marketing Research Plan in Designing a Customer Retention Program

Target the Right Customers

Instead of attempting to acquire customers just for the sake of it the car rental company should describe the type of customers it desires. As soon as the marketing objectives are laid out efforts should be geared towards the right market segments (Reicheld, 2009).

Begin a Positive Relation by Acquisition

The process of acquisition is what sets the relationship’s tone. The car rental company can segment its customers and target the most affluent that go for convenience and quality of service rather than price (Reicheld, 2009).

Integrate Customer Advocacy into Day To Day Services

Impressions tend to have a direct impact on the satisfaction of customers. It would therefore be imperative for the car rental company to train its drivers on how they can impress their customers for them to market the company to their friends (Reicheld, 2009).

The Importance of Customer Retention Program

The main objective of Customer Retention programs is repurchasing. The logic behind it is that repurchases made by customers is the main source of a company’s profitability. Through retaining customers a company would be in a position to actualize its marketing goals which is to create customer relations that are profitable, mainly done through the deliverance of superior products and services to the customers (Reicheld, 2009).The type of information the company needs to design the retention program

The car rental company will need to have the following information to design its retention program: tactics that best address its customers, timely and relevant offers that can be made by the company, how it can retain all its customers from both the economically disadvantaged and the affluent segments, best practices in the market, how it can come up with loyalty programs, how the company can incorporate advocacy into its relations with its customers (Reicheld, 2009).

Apart from that, the company needs to get information on how it can not only meet but also exceed customer expectations, how the company can increase its level of service, how the company can penetrate the market, how to prevent the defection of its customers to other companies, how to ensure that the loyalty selling will run continuously and finally how to win back its customers who had moved to other companies (Reicheld, 2009).

How to Get This Information

The company can find out all this information through engaging with its customers on the social media which is the easiest way of modern day communication. This is because social media presents a very good platform to reach out to millions of its customers around the globe given that it is an international car rental company (Reicheld, 2009).

Jobe Smith has decided to build his manufacturing business (lawn mowers in the U.S.) around the production concept. If this approach is taken, what will be Mr. Smith’s primary areas of concentration as he builds his business? What issues might Mr. Smith face in deciding to go with this concept as he builds his business?

Primary Areas of Concentration in the Production Concept

The primary areas of concentration that Jobe Smith will have to deal with include: a strategic opportunity assessment and business planning. This would be closely followed by the generation of ideas. Upon ascertaining a strategic bearing he would have to identify a grouping where there seems to be a gap that provides opportunities for a new line of products. The intention of the ideation phase is to uncover, create and discover as many product ideas as possible. Regardless of the number of new product ideas generated most of them are likely not to be feasible. Apart from that, every company in spite of its size does not have enough resources to develop. In this regard the next primary area after ideation would be to screen ideas in regard to financial, technical, marketing, manufacturing and distribution feasibility (Gill and Spring, 2008).

Issues likely to be faced by Mr. Smith as he builds his Business with the Production Concept

Mr. Smith will face the task of turning his noble ideas into concepts. After that he will also have to employ marketing research techniques in order to elicit the reaction of his targeted customers to his concepts in order to evaluate their level of interest before moving on to the prototype development stage. While still at the concept testing and development stages he would have to research on the development of his product (Gill and Spring, 2008).

References

Denzin NK, Lincoln YS (2010.). Handbook of Qualitative Research. London: Sage Publications.

Gill, B., B. Nelson, and S. Spring. (2008). “Seven Steps to Strategic New Product Development,” The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development . New York: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 19-33.

Reicheld, Frederick (2009). The Loyalty Effect: The hidden force behind growth, profits and lasting value. Watertown MA: Business Harvard Review

Marketing

Students Name

Institution

A pharmaceutical manufacturer followed sales representatives in the field to observe some 150 interactions between sales reps and physicians and support staff. They watched sales reps approach the doctors, how they got around their gatekeepers, how they delivered their brands’ messages, and so forth. These observations led to improvements in training new reps. In what category of research would this study fall? Provide advantages and disadvantages of this category of research. What would be the next step in the marketing research process? Category of Research in which the study falls

It is clear that the pharmaceutical company was involved in observation technique which falls under the qualitative research methodology. This is because the pharmaceutical company sales representatives were involved in observing the doctors being approached by sales representatives who had to go round gatekeepers to deliver their messages. Observation is a very innate as well as a demanding qualitative data collection paradigm. Some of the advantages and disadvantages of Qualitative research are outlined below (Denzin and Lincoln, 2010).

Advantages of Qualitative Research Method

Qualitative research methodology derives its strength from its capacity to provide intricate textual descriptions of how researchers do experience a certain research issue. Secondly, it offers information on the human side of a phenomenon thus means: the overly contradictory individual’s relationships, behaviors, emotions, beliefs and opinions. Thirdly, qualitative research methodology is very effective in the identification of intangible factors such as gender roles, religion, social norms, ethnicity, and socio economic status (Denzin and Lincoln, 2010).

In addition, qualitative research method provides more in depth details about a phenomenon of research this is because it digs deeper than evaluating counts and ranks through recording behaviors, attitudes and feelings. Fifthly, it tends to simulate the individual experiences of participants; in the end through qualitative research it is possible to build a detailed perception on why people act the way they do and their attitudes towards their behaviors. Finally, it tends to steer clear of pre judgments by explaining why certain assessments are provided (Denzin and Lincoln, 2010).

Disadvantages of Qualitative Research

The gathering and analysis of qualitative data is time consuming and thus very expensive. Secondly, the fact that it uses very few participants as samples makes classical researchers not to embrace it. Thirdly, the researcher is usually a participant in qualitative research through observation and thus bias in the final analysis is unavoidable. Fourthly, it has a comprehensive and in depth approach to the collection of data which limits its scope. Fifthly, Qualitative methodology does not involve the formulation of statistical data. Apart from that, qualitative data findings cannot be generalized over a wider population. Lastly, given that it is more time consuming, it tends to use a small number of participants to avoid budgetary constraints (Denzin and Lincoln, 2010).

The Next Step in the Marketing Research Process

The next step in the marketing research would be to take the observed data into the research office and try to integrate the observed phenomena into its physical context in order to understand their behaviors before coming up with sound conclusions about them.

A large international rental car company decides to develop a customer retention program. The program’s goal is to motivate its heavy users to continue being loyal to the company by offering them appropriate incentives. Create a marketing research plan to help the company design the retention program. Specifically, you need to identify:

1). Why this program is important. 2). The type of information the company needs to design the retention program. 3). Where to get this information. A Marketing Research Plan in Designing a Customer Retention Program

Target the Right Customers

Instead of attempting to acquire customers just for the sake of it the car rental company should describe the type of customers it desires. As soon as the marketing objectives are laid out efforts should be geared towards the right market segments (Reicheld, 2009).

Begin a Positive Relation by Acquisition

The process of acquisition is what sets the relationship’s tone. The car rental company can segment its customers and target the most affluent that go for convenience and quality of service rather than price (Reicheld, 2009).

Integrate Customer Advocacy into Day To Day Services

Impressions tend to have a direct impact on the satisfaction of customers. It would therefore be imperative for the car rental company to train its drivers on how they can impress their customers for them to market the company to their friends (Reicheld, 2009).

The Importance of Customer Retention Program

The main objective of Customer Retention programs is repurchasing. The logic behind it is that repurchases made by customers is the main source of a company’s profitability. Through retaining customers a company would be in a position to actualize its marketing goals which is to create customer relations that are profitable, mainly done through the deliverance of superior products and services to the customers (Reicheld, 2009).The type of information the company needs to design the retention program

The car rental company will need to have the following information to design its retention program: tactics that best address its customers, timely and relevant offers that can be made by the company, how it can retain all its customers from both the economically disadvantaged and the affluent segments, best practices in the market, how it can come up with loyalty programs, how the company can incorporate advocacy into its relations with its customers (Reicheld, 2009).

Apart from that, the company needs to get information on how it can not only meet but also exceed customer expectations, how the company can increase its level of service, how the company can penetrate the market, how to prevent the defection of its customers to other companies, how to ensure that the loyalty selling will run continuously and finally how to win back its customers who had moved to other companies (Reicheld, 2009).

How to Get This Information

The company can find out all this information through engaging with its customers on the social media which is the easiest way of modern day communication. This is because social media presents a very good platform to reach out to millions of its customers around the globe given that it is an international car rental company (Reicheld, 2009).

Jobe Smith has decided to build his manufacturing business (lawn mowers in the U.S.) around the production concept. If this approach is taken, what will be Mr. Smith’s primary areas of concentration as he builds his business? What issues might Mr. Smith face in deciding to go with this concept as he builds his business?

Primary Areas of Concentration in the Production Concept

The primary areas of concentration that Jobe Smith will have to deal with include: a strategic opportunity assessment and business planning. This would be closely followed by the generation of ideas. Upon ascertaining a strategic bearing he would have to identify a grouping where there seems to be a gap that provides opportunities for a new line of products. The intention of the ideation phase is to uncover, create and discover as many product ideas as possible. Regardless of the number of new product ideas generated most of them are likely not to be feasible. Apart from that, every company in spite of its size does not have enough resources to develop. In this regard the next primary area after ideation would be to screen ideas in regard to financial, technical, marketing, manufacturing and distribution feasibility (Gill and Spring, 2008).

Issues likely to be faced by Mr. Smith as he builds his Business with the Production Concept

Mr. Smith will face the task of turning his noble ideas into concepts. After that he will also have to employ marketing research techniques in order to elicit the reaction of his targeted customers to his concepts in order to evaluate their level of interest before moving on to the prototype development stage. While still at the concept testing and development stages he would have to research on the development of his product (Gill and Spring, 2008).

References

Denzin NK, Lincoln YS (2010.). Handbook of Qualitative Research. London: Sage Publications.

Gill, B., B. Nelson, and S. Spring. (2008). “Seven Steps to Strategic New Product Development,” The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development . New York: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 19-33.

Reicheld, Frederick (2009). The Loyalty Effect: The hidden force behind growth, profits and lasting value. Watertown MA: Business Harvard Review