Question

Summary

Put on your marketing manager hat and use the provided Marketing Research Approach Template to develop a proposal for how you will use the five-step Marketing Research Approach to develop a strategy for solving a marketing problem or addressing a marketing opportunity.

Presentation

In your presentation, do the following [Note, the Marketing Research Approach Template provides a fill-in-the-blank template that will simplify this project]:

• Define your offering (product or service)
• Explain your marketing problem or opportunity
• Identify three groups of customer segments by their need for your offering. Identify three benefits of your offering.
• Conduct a competitive analysis through which you compare key features and benefits of your offering to competitors
• From your competitive analysis, determine the differentiation by answering these questions: What makes your offering better than competitors? Why should customers choose your offering over that of competitors?
• Define the five-step Marketing Research Approach. Explain what you recommend for each step.
• Conclude with an action plan that summarizes the key points of your proposal and offers specific recommendations for next steps.

Support your analysis and recommendations using concepts from the Required Resources. Apply and cite at least two sources.

Submit your presentation.

Prepare to discuss your presentation during the WK2 Workshop.

Notes

• Please use the provided Marketing Research Approach Template, which provides a fill-in-the-blanks approach to completing this project.
• Speaker Notes ARE NOT NECESSARY.
• Cite your sources on the slides.
• See the below PowerPoint Resources for information about how to use the PowerPoint Slide Master to personalize your slides.

PowerPoint

Answer 1

Answer

As a marketing manager, here is the five-step marketing research approach to develop strategy for solving problems and addressing marketing opportunities

• Defining the offering i.e.. product or service

The product or service offered here is the range of anti-aging skin care products like cleanser, toner, moisturizer, anti-wrinkle serum and night rejuvenating cream.

• Marketing problem or opportunity: with the increased in the awareness about skin care and health there is lots of scope for the product. Problem is high competition from local and foreign brands offering similar types of products.

• The three groups of customer segments by their need for offering are

1. Women of age group 30 to 50

2. Urban and semi urban people

3. Skin care conscious people.

• The three benefits of the products are:

1. Aids in skin care and to maintain good skin.

2. Prevent age related skin problems like sagging skin, pigmentation and wrinkles.

3. Brighten and moisturize skin for super soft healthy feel.

• Competitive analysis with key features and benefits of my products to competitors

1. Identifying the competitors: here competitors are companies like Neutrogena, Olay, L’Oréal, lakme, lotus etc.

2. Comparing key features and benefits with ours. Though all the products provide very good products, they do differ in their ingredients which is reflected in their prices.

a. Our products are better cause of the quality ingredients and the mixture or traditional herbal and new age advanced ingredients. We do understand the different skin types, their problems and the perfect solution for each. Making us more reliable and efficient.

b. Customers should choose our products over other brands in the market because, we include the herbal ingredients making it safe and better for skin rather than all chemical products which are harsh on skin. And different skin care range as per skin type and requirement.

• Five step marketing approach is as follows and what I recommend in each step.

1. Defining the problem: it is clearly state and define the exact marketing problem to be addressed. And knowing all the potential causes for it. Here the problem is the competition from other brands. And the causes are better branding, pricing strategies, etc

2. Marketing research plan: it is to develop the course of action to address the above problems. Few techniques that can be used to do it is conduct a survey to know the customers well and try to address their issues. Clear their concerns about skin care. Better brand awareness and positioning among the potential customers.

3. Data collection: it is very essential to collect all the relevant data and information with regards to the above said problems. We have to make sure it is both open and closed ended to collect valid and unbiased data. It can be through questionnaire method or survey method.

4. Analyzing the data collected and systematic arrangement of it. While analyzing the data look for trends, solutions to the problems from the customers, concerns to be addressed etc. and proper presentation of this data is also very important. Use of proper techniques used and step by step evaluation will be added advantage here. Try to know if the hypothesis made was correct or wrong.

5. Action: once the research is complete, its time to bring in the action part of addressing the issues analyzing. the problem defined. And keep in mind as trends change, the research has to evolve. So, one has to keep the research continuous and valid.

• As we conclude let’s summarize the action plan

1. Focus on customer understanding

2. Brand positioning – brand awareness among to potential customers.

3. Competitive pricing so as to be one of the players in the market.

• Using the concepts from required resources viz,

1. Human: hiring the best in field both for manufacturing of good product and to do the marketing. To have the competitive advantage over other companies.

2. Material: picking up the best material as per the budget so that neither product nor cost is being affected.

3. Capital resource: proper financial planning and use of funds to gain more and have a large market share.