“the process of acquiring and analyzing information in order to understand the market (both existing and potential customers); to determine the current and future needs and preferences, attitudes and behavior of the market; and to assess changes in the business environment that may affect the size and nature of the market in future.”
Marketing Intelligence incorporates...
information from customer analysis and industry analysis as well as general market conditions.
Examples of Needs of Marketing Intelligence
■ Producers have little direct contact with consumers (geographical distance and channel layers).
■ Channels have little knowledge about customer attitudes, preference, and changing tastes.
■ Need to understand competition without spying on them.
■ Management goals involve sales targets and market share achievement.
■ Need to identify successful new product developments early in the process to ensure growth and revenue maximization by finding a balance between costs and prices of products.
■ The future is uncertain, yet, businesses do need to anticipate the future. The need is to look at least up to 5–10 years in advance. Pharmaceutical companies do it on a regular basis because they have to plan for what happens when a particular patent expires.
Various areas where marketing Intelligence is applied
■ Product decisions-Marketing intelligence helps in making decisions on investing in new products and also in optimizing product specifications or offering to target customer groups.
■ Customer segmentation decisions- Marketing intelligence gives an opportunity for companies to study the impact of advertisements—before and after advertisements. Based on research and audience composition, marketing intelligence gives companies the flexibility to choose advertising media. Finally, MI also gives companies enough information for selection of target segments.
■ Brand and pricing decisions-Marketing intelligence helps decision makers in building brand equity and consciousness among the targeted customer segments. Gathering marketing intelligence also helps capture popular perceptions and changing trends, tastes, and lifestyles.
■ Keeping stakeholders happy Understanding stakeholder needs and responding to them keeps all stakeholders—customers,channels, and suppliers—satisfied. A satisfied customer is a profitable customer.
■ Market estimation, competitive benchmarking, and distribution Marketing intelligence also helps in quantitative analysis of market forces—estimating size of the market, quantitative and behavioral analysis of the market, and forecasting future trends/needs.Marketing intelligence also helps in market share analyses.
The primary decision to use Market Research factors include the following:
Relevance
Type and Nature of info sought
Timing
Availability of resources
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Categories of Marketing Research Goals?
Programmatic Research-performed to develop marketing options through market segmentation, market opportunity analysis or consumer attitude and product usage studies