Reaching New Heights . . .
Understand, Develop and Apply Market
Research
Chapter V
Integrating Marketing in the Leisure Industry
Marketing Research
•
Is the heart of the marketing effort
•
It is embedded throughout the marketing process
•
It is more accessible than ever
•
It is a valued tool used to improve an agency’s
bottom line
•
Provides information to make informed decisions
•
Has three characteristics within leisure service
agencies (Sutton, Irwin, & Gladden, 1998):
1.
2.
3.
Must be descriptive and gather facts
Must be diagnostic and explain behaviors
Must be predictive and use both descriptive and diagnostic
data to assist in marketing decision-making
Market Research Definition
Market research is a systematic and objective process
for generating information that will be used in
decision-making.
Data mining - represents the process that integrates a
variety of data and information gathering techniques
to identify and explain patterns and relationships in
data that can be used to make projections about
consumer behavior (Fitzpatrick, 2001).
How Market Research Is Used?
Market research is used:
• Prior to marketing decision-making (focus groups,
secondary data, survey, historical data, etc.)
• Throughout marketing decision-making (telesurvey,
observation, survey, focus groups, etc.)
• Post-marketing decision-making (secondary data,
survey, critical incident technique)
What Do You Know About Your
Consumers?
Gender?
Age?
Family status?
Geographic residence/work place?
Income (if necessary)?
Individual or group status?
Consumption patterns?
Needs, wants and interests?
Benefits sought from an agency experience?
Satisfaction with the experience?
What attracts them to the agency?
How often they use competing agencies and why?
How they heard about the agency?
What do you know about potential target markets?
What do you know about non-users?
What do you know about employees?
What do you know about board members/owners?
What do you know about volunteers?
What do you know about suppliers?
What do you know about your competition?
What do you know about the industry?
What do you know about the market?
What do you know about your agency?
What do you know about non-industry events and
trends?
Value of Market Research
•
Improves marketing effectiveness
•
Understands needs, wants, and interests of many
“publics”
•
Better satisfies ‘publics’
•
Increases confidence in decision making
•
Provides evidence to support initiatives (sells ideas
to others)
Types of Market Research
• Internal market research
– data gathered as part of day-to-day operation
• Guest registration, accounting, reservations, etc.
• Standardized market research
– Gathered by an outside org or individual and available to
anyone who can find it (Public info… challenge is finding it)
• Primary market research (specialized)
– More in a min….
• Secondary market research (internal and
standardized)
– More in a min….
Advantages and Disadvantages of
Types of Market Research
•
Primary Market Research
– Often based on a problem or area of need
– Gathered by org or hires someone to collect and ask specific questions.
Advantages:
Applicable and usable for the agency
Accurate and reliable (since the agency
conducted the research)
Up-to-date
Disadvantages:
Expensive
Not immediately available
Not as readily accessible
Advantages and Disadvantages of
Types of Market Research
• Secondary Market Research –
– Often gathered by others and used by org. (someone else's’
primary research and used by your org.
Advantages:
Inexpensive
Easily accessible
Immediately available
Disadvantages:
May be outdated
Potentially unreliable
May not be applicable to agency
issue/question
Secondary Research Sources
• Agency/internal secondary data
• Governmental sources
• Public record sources
• Private research data
• Leisure specific associations, trade journals and
publications
• International and national data
• Local data
• Databases for secondary market research
Challenges with Market Research
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
Sampling error
Sampling bias
Measurement error
No response error
Memory error
Ignorance
Misunderstanding
Dissimulation error
Problem definition
Surrogate information error
Population specification error
Selection error
Analysis errors
(Sources: Semon, 2000; Stynes, 1997)
Primary Market Research
•
Explanatory research (qualitative)
•
Descriptive research (quantitative)
•
Exploratory research (qualitative)
Primary Market Research Steps
•
Problem identification – research objectives
•
Research design
•
Data collection method
•
Analysis of data
•
Interpretation and report
Problem Formulation
• Identify “problems”
• Identify objectives of research
– needs and interests of non-users
– satisfaction of users
– describe current market demographics
Sampling Procedures
• Simple random
– Every desired sample has equal chance to be selected randomly from
the population
• Systematic sampling
– Every desired sample is selected interval from phone book or birth list,
• Stratified random
– Groups people by your research criteria and then randomly selects the
desired sample from each group.
• Cluster sampling
– Divided entire population into subgroup based on standard unit such as
area or class and then randomly selected desired sample.
• Area sampling
– Particular city blocks are used to sample an area of the population.
Data Design and Data Collection
• Quantitative (i.e. surveys)
–
–
–
–
Answers who, what, where, how much
Inflexible
Hypothesized vs. actual
Reliable
Common Data Collection Methods
• Mail
• Face-to-face
• Telephone
• Email
• HTML
Mail Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Inexpensive
Same local/national cost
Limited bias
Reach large #’s
Large reach
Anonymous (sensitive
issues)
• Convenient to answer
• Quick
Disadvantages:
• Impersonal
• Low response rate
Face to Face Advantages and
Disadvantages
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
High response rate
High flexibility
Timely
Open ended questions
completed
• Controlled clarification
Expensive
Interview bias
Reluctance to respond
Inconvenient
Large number of staff
needed
Telephone Advantages and
Disadvantages
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
• Same as face-to-face . . .
Plus . . .
• Lower cost than face-toface
• Easier to find hard to
reach people
• Sample more people in
less time
• Centralized data
collection
• More invasion of privacy
• Higher refusal rate than
face-to-face
• Limited time to respond
(20/40)
• Unlisted numbers
• Call screening devices
• Competition with “sales”
type calls
• Like F/F: inter-rater and
intra-rater reliability
Response Rate Issue
• Goal is 100%
• Importance of non response
• Large samples
Data Analysis
• Editing
• Create codebook
• Tabulate/data entry
• Conduct statistical tests
• Interpretation of results
• Reporting of results
Considerations Regarding Primary
Research
1.
Timeliness
2.
Cost effectiveness
3.
Usefulness
4.
Accuracy
5.
Reliability
Quantitative Research
• Survey questionnaire
• Experiments
• Importance/Performance Analysis
Qualitative Research
•
In-depth understanding of opinions, attitudes,
perceptions, and behaviors.
Interviews
•
Focus groups
•
Critical Incident Technique
•
Observation (e.g. Mystery Shopping)
•
Delphi Technique
Mystery Shopping
• Trained observers, referred to as mystery shoppers,
act as agency consumers.
• They observe agency operations and service levels
provided to other consumers and themselves.
• They then provide detailed feedback to agency’s
regarding their observations and at times make
recommendations regarding service practices.
Critical Incident Technique
• Collecting direct observations and experiences about
human behavior
• Categorizing the information in a way that is useful to
address and solve practical problems
Questionnaires
• Developing the instrument – questions, scales, format,
sequence, validity and reliability check (pilot testing)
• Response rates - increasing response rates, non
response concerns
• Sampling issues – random and non-random sampling
• Collection methods – mail, e-mail, web based, face-toface, telephone, etc. (advantages and disadvantages)
• Analysis of data
• Ethical issues in research
Common Questionnaire Errors
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•
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•
•
•
•
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•
•
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Too long
No explanation of the purpose of the research
No instructions (circle one, check all that apply, etc.)
No date (especially with continued research, i.e.
programming evaluation)
Multiple questions in one question
No “I don’t know” or “no opinion” options, if needed
No ability to respond (collectively exhaustive)
Overlapping possible responses (mutually exclusive)
Including unfamiliar technical terms, jargon or words
with unclear meanings
Unnecessary sensitive questions
Unprofessional document
Asking for information that the agency already has
Asking unrelated questions to the purpose of the
study
Possible Errors in Quantitative
Research
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•
•
•
•
•
•
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Sampling procedure
Number of respondents
Non-response bias
Poor questions
Reliability
Data entry errors
Misinterpretation of the findings
Ethical issues in reporting
Satisfaction Measurement and
Feedback
• Comment Cards
• Importance/Performance Analysis
• SERVQUAL
….more about each of these…….
Importance/Performance Analysis
• This technique accesses importance and
performance information related to a customer’s
experience and translates this information into “easy
to understand” management suggestions.
• The Importance Performance Analysis attributes are
evaluated and placed on a matrix, basing their
placement on their relative importance and
performance to customers.
The Importance/Performance Matrix
High
Scores
I
M
P
O
R
T
A
N
C
E
Low
Scores
Concentrate Here
Keep Up The Good
Work
* attribute
Low
Priority
* attribute
Possible
Overkill
* attribute
Low
Scores
PERFORMANCE
High
Scores
SERVQUAL
• Instrument used to measure service quality
• Categories that represent service quality are:
Assurance
Tangibles
Empathy
Responsiveness
Reliability
Why Agencies Want Feedback?
• Feedback is important to learn, change and grow.
• Good service keeps people coming back.
• A chance to make the organization more
efficient/effective.
• A dissatisfied guest tells 9 people about the service
they received (who in turn tell 9, and so on, becoming
the 250 rule!).
• Guests who were once dissatisfied and were
recovered will be more loyal than someone who
never had a problem to begin with.
• A typical organization hears from only 4% of unhappy
guests.
• Even if an employee no longer works for an
organization they will always be a potential external
guest.
Feedback Methods
INTERNAL CONSUMERS - Employees
• Exit interviews
•
• Performance evaluations (360*)
• Meetings
• Quality circles
Feedback Methods
EXTERNAL CONSUMERS
• Board members
• Employees
• Received correspondence
• Tracking the number of and the reasons for
giveaways
• 800 telephone numbers
• Empowerment/dissatisfaction forms
• Guest advisory panels
• Sales data
• Guest complaints
• Incidents/guest problems
• Returns
Feedback Methods
ALL TYPES OF CONSUMERS
• Mail, telephone or face-to-face questionnaire
• Interviews
• Focus groups
• Comment cards
• Telephone calls
• Mystery shopping
• Management observation
Questions????