Surveys, if used, should be done face to face by door knocking as it is more convenient and has a high response rate. The survey would include quantitative and qualitative type's questions in order to get a ' broader view of the customers' behavior. Questions could include "What do you think affects your behavior within store? ' for open ended qualitative questions and for quantitative they could be something Like "How long do you expect to Walt on hold for customer services? Which will give more precise data.
Buying Patterns Online shopping would be more appropriate and easy for investigating the buying patterns of registered customers. Whatever they have bought over their time spent registered with the website it will be recorded and can then be transferred into rapes for easy analysis of what can be done on certain product lines. Data would include, when they bought it, who bought it and how much it cost.This can help them see what product lines are more suited to higher income people and vice versa. In addition to this method of researching buying patterns, businesses could also produce surveys and loyalty schemes which prove to be helpful in market research.
A lot of businesses Invest large amounts of money Into survey and loyalty schemes so that they can find out more about their target audience. Consumer Preferences For this kind of research a survey would be more appropriate.I would make sure that the survey was either done in store when the customers receive the bill at a restaurant, which they do in Gourmet Burger Kitchen, or done out in the heart of city center's to get more publicity and opinions. The survey would be more quantitative rather than qualitative as you are researching for what flavors they want, what meal deals they reckon are good and what kind of adverts attract their attention. Customer Satisfaction To measure customer satisfaction I would put a focus group on a specific number of people that have been to the business and bought products in the past.The group resulting in a lot of information about their past experiences with the company like, the product features relevance, whether the products' have been described effectively, feelings after sales and after sale care.
These feelings and opinions can be recorded and taken into consideration in the next business meeting. Sales Trends To do market research on the sales trends it makes sense to use the businesses sales figures and accounting information. It shows how many units were sold in certain months, whether there is a pattern between the product sold and the month it was sold in.This enables the business management to look at sales trends via graphs and make decisions based on how the sales are doing including decisions such as; what products need more advertising efforts, which stores are exceeding their past sales trends and how regional sales are fluctuating. Brand awareness To research brand awareness a survey done face to face would be best.
Base the survey in city centers to try to approach as many people as possible. Questions within the survey would Just ask if they can recall the brand unprompted, what feelings the customers have about the brand and if the prices are a fair reflection of he brand.This would need a mixture of quantitative and qualitative type questions. Observation panels Advertising Awareness Again to research advertising awareness a survey would the most effective way also done face to face for a high response rate. Questions should be ones asking whether they have heard of certain products available, if they understand key features of products and is the current campaign for the business displaying a clear message to customers and whether they understand it. This can be done mostly in quantitative format as the answers are mainly yes and no or multiple choice.
This will help build nice graphs for easy analysis. Product Development Success To measure product development success I would use surveys online and pay a survey website to put your businesses questions on the site for a small fee. This will ask the public questions like if they, personally, saw the product as a success in their area of the world and questions asking what products might be needed to achieve international success. Experimentation methods can be used to develop a product by testing whether their product awareness increases after certain campaigns, different packaging or new products are released.This will help change the product over time into something they public prefer.
To research the new markets that are appearing a survey method would be appropriate. It would have to be done on business critiques face to face or online and ask questions such as what products are likely to have appeal in the new market, where would consumers expect to buy this new product from and what type of promotional activity will be effective in these markets? Alternatively an interview could also be done on experts in business and marketing to reveal experienced answers. Also a panel could be used to get lengthened results on the new market.You could also use secondary data that has been produced online or in books. This will be beneficial to learn from but if the market is brand spanking new then the chances are that there wont be much secondary data available at the time.
Competitor Activities To research competitor activities you can look on their website, download their financial balance sheet, profit and loss account and cash flow, do mystery shopping and pose as a customer to see promotions and their marketing techniques. Report all information back to the business and try to stay one step ahead of the game.
