Online Library > Site Links > Market Research for
Beginners
Glossary
of Market Research Terms
Market Research has some specialized terms
that you must know the meaning of in order to be able to understand the
market research reports. It is also fundamental for management to know
these terms to be considered knowledgeable in certain sectors such
as advertising, research, and computers. Here is a short
checklist of the basic terms that you should become familiar
with.
Attitude
Statements
Cluster
Analysis
Conjoint
Analysis
Demographics
Demography
Desk
Research
Family Life
Cycles
Forecasting
Geodemographics
Image
Statements
Market
Mapping
Market
Segmentation
Marketing Information
System
Modelling
Multivariated Techniques
Paired Comparison Test
Psychographic Analysis
Regression
Analysis
Sample
Sampling
Trade-off
Models
Attitude Statements
A psychological concept designed to evaluate and investigate
values, beliefs and motives for different forms of behavior.
Developing statements to describe your company, its products and
services compared with those of your competitors provides the
means of creating a control or standard. Consumers can be asked
wheter they agree or disagree with the attitudes and following
the changes in time.
Cluster Analysis
A technique for establishing whether a group of people have
similar attitudes or characteristics, which help to define or
confirm subsegments of a market. It is a technique of
multivariate analysis, that identifies groups of individuals that
have similaries and differences from each other. This technique
helps define which types of products suit different types of of
consumer, and also helps determine whether communications can be
developed for reaching specific market segments.
Conjoint Analysis
A method for evaluating consumer preferences among product
concepts, which vary in respect to several attributes. It is
based on asking people to rank product concepts they most and
least prefer. Use of this analysis helps to develop data on how
certain types of customers have a preference for purchasing and
using certain types of products. It will help define what is the
ideal for customers because of how well the product meets their
needs.
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Demographics
Sex, age, and social grade are the key parts of the
classification data in research, and comprise the demographics of
the market being researched. It is fundamental for defining a
market initially to know who are the currect and potential
customers are. Customers are not a homogenous mix. There are
different cultures and regional languages, and they vary from
recent arrivals to established generations. Demographics
comprises selected characteristics of a population (age and
income distribution and trends, mobility, educational attainment,
home ownership and employment status, for instance) for purposes
of social studies. It is also used in marketing, marketing
research, opinion research, political research, and the study of
consumer behaviour.
Demography
The science that studies the characteristics of human
populations, such as size, growth, density, distribution, and
vital statistics. The term demography should not be confused with
demographics, which comprises selected characteristics of human
populations and population segments, especially when used to
identify consumer markets.
Desk Research
Desk research is based on the use of secundary data, collecting
published information relevant to the markets and products of
your interest. Collecting this information may be important for
understanding markets and can help in the design of survey
research, specially in preventing survey duplicating the
collection of data that is already available.
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Family Life Cycles
Stages in the development of families, such as young sigles
people, young couples, family early stages, couples with
children, family at home, mid-life stage, older people without
children, and the late stage.
Forecasting
Estimating the ocurrence of an event in the future. It may also
be a prediction mode using a mathematical model, or an
extrapolation made from curent trends. Forecasting is important
as a techenique in a defined market, which can be tracked by
monitoring key facts, habits, and activities of the market that
is being analyzed. Forecasting is particularly useful as a way to
evaluate products and product performance in when the design or
formulation is changed to alter the sales or the market.
Geodemographics
A method of classifying households based on the multivariate
analysis of data from the Population Census. The practical
application of geodemographics classifications is frequently
based on on computer matching of addresses to district
classifications by means of the postcode or zipcode.
Geodemographics is useful in direct marketing, retail planning,
development of promotions, and specific marketing activities for
monitoring markets or ethnic groups.
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Image Statements
Consumers perceptions and impressions of a company, a product,
or a service expressed in a clear way are called image
statements. They are useful for establishing how close to, or how
far away, the ideas, concepts, and strategies are from consumer
needs.
Market Mapping
A market map which shows the relative positions of the products
in the market, and consumer characteristics. It is the most
effective method for resuming the findings of attitude research.
There are two main applications for market mapping. One is to
draw up, literally, the structure of a market and to add to the
map the facts about each level of the market, such as sales
volume, the classification of customer types and other data. This
technique is very good for understanding a market more clearly.
The second application is to use the results of survey research
and to plot them in the form of a map showing the relationship
between defined customer types and the attitudes as they are
described, or listing the product attributes as rated by the
customers. This second technique is good for developing a product
or a communications strategy in sophisticated markets where it is
important to develop strategies to respond to consumers changing
and demanding needs, in order to counter competitive threats.
Market Segmentation
To divide a market using classifications or market facts. A very
important marketing technique, market segmentation is a key tool
before and after performing market research. It allows customer
types and their various needs to be analyzed, interpreted and
monitored effectively. It assists in understanding how the market
divides and how the customers behave in different ways to meet
their different needs.
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Marketing Information System
MIS for short, refers to all the information available to
management, together with the hardware for its processing,
storage, and retrieval. Reports from all departments, market
research, and market intelligence are all part of the MIS, or
Management Information System.
Modelling
A model is a summary of observations, including mathematical
models. Modelling is a way of imitating or copying the market
forces and testing out changes in the market, then observing the
effects that result. This technique is particularly effective in
product and service research. Modelling allows to anticipate
market changes and move quickly once the effects of your
competitors activities are reproduced and analyzed in the
model.
Multivariate Techniques
These are techniques that examine the relationship among a
number of variables. They include analysis of variance,
multi-regression, factor and principal component analysis, cluster
analysis and dicriminant analysis.These techniques are applied
to survey analysis and provide management with the opportunity to
product and communication planning.
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Paired Comparison Test
This is a test to compare two products ors samples, with the
purpose of getting a user or buyer to discriminate between them
or to identify changes or improvements. It is an important technique
for developing data to identify users and buyers attitudes to
competitors products and establishing perceived benefits of your
own products.
Psychographic Analysis
A segmentation technique that classifies people into groups based
on their behavior or attitudes. This application is becoming more
and more important as because it helps to classify and group
customers in a market, reflecting their needs based on their
preferences and buying habits. It helps to make communications
more direct and relevant, and to make market analysis more realist
in the context of getting to know the customer.
Regression Analysis
A statistical method of calculating an equation which is applied
to a set of bivariate or multivariate observations. It is a
useful technique for analysing different market segments to
identify whether any of the subgroups of customers have any
similarities in behavior, attitudes or preferences.
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Sample
A representation of the whole, whose purpose is to enable the
investigation of the characteristics of the population. It is
comprised of parts or subsets of the population being researched.
Survey research depends on getting this right, as a survey
completed with the wrong type of population is worthless.
Sampling
The technique for selecting a sample. It depends on setting up a
sampling frame and identifying sampling units, which comprise a
population. Survey research is only successful if the sampling is
completed correctly and well.
Trade-off Models
A technique to discover the most attractive combination of
attributes for a product or service, by the respondent expressing
a preference for one or another alternative. It is an
important technique for understanding clearly why people buy, how
they evaluate whether the product or service that is offered
corresponds with their needs, and the way in which they decide on
making the purchase.
