8.3 INTERNET MARKET RESEARCH Traditional marketing research

Consists of focus groups, interviews, paper and telephone surveys, questionnaires and secondary research Findings based on previously collected data

Online marketing research Faster option for finding and analyzing industry,

customer and competitor information Provides relaxed and anonymous setting to hold

focus-group discussions and distribute questionnaires

8.3 INTERNET MARKETING RESEARCH

Segmentation Can be based on age, income, gender, culture and

common needs and wants

Demographics Statistics on human population, including age, sex,

marital status and income

Psychographics Can include family lifestyle, cultural differences and

values  Traditional focus groups can allow customers to

touch, smell and experience products or services

8.3 INTERNET MARKETING RESEARCH Online focus groups

Conducted to allow current or potential consumers to present their opinions about products, services or ideas

Comfortable setting for participants Leader of the focus group cannot interpret a participant’s

body language as a form of communication SurveySite

Online surveys Conducted from Web site or through e-mail InsightExpress.com, GoGlobal Technologies and QuickTake

Test your site and marketing campaign on a smaller scale with focus groups and trials

Data collected from a company’s Web site

8.3 INTERNET MARKETING RESEARCH

Evaluate campaign results Measure costs and benefits of campaign

Helps with development of a budget for marketing activities

Identify growing and most profitable segments Marketing-research firms

Forrester Research, Adknowledge, Jupiter Communications and Media Metrix

 

A proper online market research helps a business in the following areas

Making advantageous marketing decisions in order to quickly align with market patterns in terms of users’ demands, habits and target audience.

Surviving the competition by knowing the activities and patterns of competitors in market. Analyzing the target audience and their product /services helps a business to take practical actions to attract the audience towards their brand.

Deciding the target market, before any launch of a new product it is desired to approach the concerned or target population first. Online market research helps to figure out the target population in order to achieve the high conversion rate of prospects to the customer.

Maximize profits with online research by gathering reviews of a product. This helps a business to attain the value of product in terms of money, which customers are ready to pay, and interestingly, it could be far higher than the current price.

advantages of online market research

Precision: Results approximation errors are usually low in online market research over conventional research because of digital computation of data and research patterns.

Cross border activity: International census and research data about a product or service can be gathered in order to study the impact and performance, overseas. It can provide a hint about the habits and responses of population to a particular product in a large area.

Fast: Data analysis and data collection can be easy and fast using online market research. Storage and retrieval of digital data gives a pace to the process of 

analysis. A company providing IT Infrastructure services recently conducted a poll to understand the sentiment of people regarding the use of cloud applications. A sample of 10,000 people attended the poll in just 2 days and the company had all the information they needed.

Reliable: Internet allows the collection of proper and correct set of data results with an automated system of data collection. It reduces the cases of human-error in data and any other kind of discrepancy and redundancy.

Disadvantages:

Slow internet connections can cause difficulties. If the companies build too complex or too large websites, it will take too long for users to check them or download them and they will get bored eventually..

The e-commerce doesn’t allow the user “to touch” the merchandise before purchasing it. Because of this, some salesmen are starting to guarantee the possibility of returning the product. In Germany, where a law that regulates e-commerce and guarantees the customers the total refund of the money exists since 2000, the electronic commerce is very popular.

Other factor is the payment: many users still don’t trust in the electronic methods of paying and give up buying online because of this.

One of the major disadvantages may be the lack of trust of the users because of the constant virtual promotions that appear to be frauds. This is an aspect that deteriorates the image and reputation of quality and honest companies.

Other disadvantage is the cash on delivery system, since it doesn’t guarantee the 100% purchase of the product. This is also the case of thousands of users that dedicate themselves to daily mock big companies by ordering on the internet using false identities.