Marketing Framework
If Marketing Is Not Advertising - What Is It?
Marketing Framework
Market Research and Buyer Behaviour
Understanding the behaviour of buyers in your target group is crucial in marketing. Now more than ever, success is dependant upon market research and identifying and meeting customer needs at a profit. ‘Zara’ have recently become the world’s largest clothing retailer, ‘by focusing on understanding consumer needs and behaviour and by providing value to the customer’. Through intense market research, they developed an important knowledge of their target market’s buying patterns and recognised the need to constantly update their styles. Furthermore they understood new concepts such as ‘fast fashion’ and ‘disposable clothing’, the idea that teenagers and young adults craved new styles quickly and cheaply.
It is now more important than ever for marketing managers to respond swiftly and decisively to changes in consumer patterns. Nowadays, an excellent method a company can monitor their target market and conduct extensive market research is through social media. Never before have enterprises had such powerful technologies to interact with customers. Almost every company has their own ‘Facebook’ or ‘Twitter’ account (combined with over one billion active Facebook users globally), where they can receive immediate customer feedback about the faults in their product online. Furthermore, customers can chat online about these products. 53 percent of people on Twitter in Ireland recommend companies and/or products in their ‘tweets’(ROI Research for Performance, June 2010). ‘Calgon’ dishwasher tablets recently produced an advertisement for television, where two women chat in an online forum about their dishwashers. The first woman complains about her dishwasher, while the other recommends she starts using ‘Calgon’ tablets. Calgon certainly demonstrate their understanding of the importance of ‘word of mouth’; recent statistics show that 84 percent of customers
Marketing Framework
Market Research and Buyer Behaviour
Understanding the behaviour of buyers in your target group is crucial in marketing. Now more than ever, success is dependant upon market research and identifying and meeting customer needs at a profit. ‘Zara’ have recently become the world’s largest clothing retailer, ‘by focusing on understanding consumer needs and behaviour and by providing value to the customer’. Through intense market research, they developed an important knowledge of their target market’s buying patterns and recognised the need to constantly update their styles. Furthermore they understood new concepts such as ‘fast fashion’ and ‘disposable clothing’, the idea that teenagers and young adults craved new styles quickly and cheaply.
It is now more important than ever for marketing managers to respond swiftly and decisively to changes in consumer patterns. Nowadays, an excellent method a company can monitor their target market and conduct extensive market research is through social media. Never before have enterprises had such powerful technologies to interact with customers. Almost every company has their own ‘Facebook’ or ‘Twitter’ account (combined with over one billion active Facebook users globally), where they can receive immediate customer feedback about the faults in their product online. Furthermore, customers can chat online about these products. 53 percent of people on Twitter in Ireland recommend companies and/or products in their ‘tweets’(ROI Research for Performance, June 2010). ‘Calgon’ dishwasher tablets recently produced an advertisement for television, where two women chat in an online forum about their dishwashers. The first woman complains about her dishwasher, while the other recommends she starts using ‘Calgon’ tablets. Calgon certainly demonstrate their understanding of the importance of ‘word of mouth’; recent statistics show that 84 percent of customers