Marketing research and strategy

1. Assuming that one of your first tasks is to persuade senior managers at Tammy of the need to collect some marketing information to improve the running of the business. Critically assess the types of information that you believe would be useful for marketing purposes and discuss how you would collect this information, drawing a distinction between secondary and primary data.

Explain how this information would assist in marketing decision making at Tammy.Primary research entails the use of immediate data in determining the survival of the market. The popular ways to collect primary data consist of surveys, interviews and focus groups, which shows that direct relationship between potential customers and the companies. (Palmer, 2009:134) Secondary research is a means to reprocess and reuse collected information as an indication for betterments of the service or product. Both primary and secondary data are useful for businesses but both may differ from each other in various aspects.

(Palmer, 2009:134)Secondary data refers to information in which in some sense is second-hand to the current project; this is because it is collected internally by the organisation. Also, it can be a useful point for a research exercise, if somebody else has collected data or published a report in a closely related area, it is often much cheaper to buy the report rather than afresh. (Palmer, 2009:135) Primary research is concerned with generating more information directly from the target population. It tends to become more expensive to conduct than secondary research, but results are invariably more up-to-date and specific to a company's objectives. (Palmer, 2009:135)Tammy's use of mystery shopping is a way of investigating a busy fast-paced environment of another competitor and to analyse their ranges of clothing and footwear and also it gives them an advantage to identify the company's weakness by finding out what retailers their products are not selling well at, so there could be a room for improvement.

They also can copy their competitors and sell it at a lower price, this could be referred to Primark copying other quality retailers' products e.g. Topman such as their plimsolls and produce it at a cheaper quality and price yet gathers high demand from customers.On the other hand, the disadvantage of observation techniques is that it is harder to make decisions based on observation, i.e.

no statistics neither surveys; therefore there is no existing data to be acknowledged. Also, if the person knows they are being observed know that they are being observed, they may act unusual and give off the wrong actions, speech and thoughts because they may be nervous. Quantitative Research This is used to measure consumers' attitudes and behaviour where the nature of the research has been defined and described. It is also designed to gather information from statically representative sample of the target population.

(Palmer, 2009:143)The advantage is that the researcher is more objective about the findings of their research. Using a correlation analysis can interest Tammy marketers to an extent to which phenomena are associated with each other, for example, whether consumer spending is associated with sales revenue. However, this could be linked to a third factor, i.e.

economy because if there is a 'boom' there would be more disposable income for customers which means they are less price-sensitive and have a willingness to buy goods.The disadvantage would be that Tammy researchers would need a larger sample to study, therefore the larger the sample, the more statistically accurate the results will be. This would be very time consuming and increase costs for the company. Qualitative Research It involves the exploration and the interpretation of the perceptions and behaviour of small sample of individuals, and the study of the motivators behind observed actions.

(Palmer, 2009:148) An advantage to qualitative research is the researcher gains more detailed and rich data in the form of comprehensive written descriptions or visual evidence.Interviewing is a type of method Tammy would use to find out what views people hold; their views should be unbiased by evaluative responses on the researcher's part. The researcher should choose an interview environment and the conditions in which the participants feel comfortable, secure, and at ease to speak openly about their view. This would help Tammy to become innovative and develop marketing strategies to improve customer satisfaction.A disadvantage to this that the researcher interprets the research according to his or her own biased view, which skews the data gathered.

This would give the Tammy researcher a subjective view of the study and its participants. Articles/magazines Fashion magazines help individuals to keep themselves informed about the current fashion and trends. Other magazines such as children magazines, women magazines, celebrity magazines etc help individuals to entertain themselves. Magazines would be a greater source of revenues for Tammy distributing the magazines and provide them profitable business.

The disadvantage is that magazines these days usually portray indecent images or values in the form of pictures of actresses and models etc. A little kid reading a fashion magazine might come across a lot of material that would not be suitable for him/her to read. This could explain why young children tend to address themselves as adults. Marketing Information System It can be defined as a system in which marketing information is formally gathered, stored, analysed and distributed to managers in accordance with their informational needs on a regular basis.