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Developing Marketing Information!Marketers can obtain the needed information form several sources. Internal data, marketing intelligence, and marketing research. Internal Data Most companies build extensive internal databases, collections of information obtained from data sources within the company. Marketing managers can easily access the work with information in the database to identify marketing opportunities and problems, plan marketing projects, and evaluate marketing performance. Information in the database comes from many sources. The accounting department usually keeps detailed records of sales, costs, and cash flow. The operations department reports on production, shipment, and inventories. The sales force reports on reseller reactions, and competitor activities. Internal databases can be accessed faster and cheaper than other information sources, but they also have some problems. Because it was collected for other purposes, it may be incomplete or in the wrong format. The data will age quickly and keeping the database current requires a major effort. In addition a company can produce a large volume of data and keeping track of it all can be a chore. The database information must be well integrated and readily accessible so that managers can find it easily and use it effectively. Marketing Intelligence Marketing intelligence is the systematic collection and analysis of publicly available information about competitors and developments in the marketplace. The goal is to improve strategic decision-making, assess and track competitor’s actions, and provide early warning of opportunities and threats. A company can also collect important information from suppliers, resellers, key customers, or by observing the competition. It can buy and analyze competitor’s products, monitor there sales, check for new patents, and examine various types of public documents. Competitors may reveal information through their annual reports, business publications, trade show exhibits, press releases, advertisements, and web pages. The Internet is proving to be a vast new source of competitor supplied information. Clearly companies should take advantage of publicly available information. However they should not stoop to unethical or illegal methods to obtain the information they are after. With all the legitimate sources of information available a company does not have to break the law or compromise its code of ethics. Marketing Research In addition to information about competitors and marketplace happenings, marketers often need formal studies of specific situations. Managers will need marketing research. This is the systematic design, collection, analysis and reporting of data relevant to a specific marketing situation facing an organization. Companies use marketing research in a wide variety of situations. The marketing research process has four steps:
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