Secondary data and database searching is a popular marketing research method. Computerized data are prevalent and less costly in terms of collection, retrieval, and storage. However, inaccurate data is a dominant challenge of using secondary data and databases. Because secondary data and databases are typically tailored to meet the interests of a primary researcher, they are often not suited objectives of the marketing research (Kabir, 2016).
Inaccurate information can heavily damage a business venture by misleading the entrepreneurs about existing and prospective customers, the industry, and competition (Olabode et al., 2019). As a result, it can be challenging for businesses to create and maintain relationships with consumers and build brand loyalty. Inaccurateness of secondary data and databases, particularly for secondary marketing research, arouses interest in determining if it could be the primary cause of failed relationships between businesses and consumers, alongside weak brands.
Use of Marketing Research to Identify Business Opportunities
Market opportunity or market gap is the prediction of a surge in the overall demand for a product that is not yet available. The existence of market opportunity is often determined before investing money and time into the concept (McDaniel & Gates, 2018). It is expressed in the form of prospective sales volume or value. The market opportunity is tightly linked to market research. The outcome of this research and the data collected are used to predict the demand for a specific product. The researcher determines the size of the market by identifying sales made by competitors or attempting to establish the number of potential customers for a new product.
The market equilibrium (balance between supply and demand) that is not being met indicates the existence of a market opportunity (McDaniel & Gates, 2018). Market researchers also use market growth to find market gaps. By reviewing market figures for the past 5-10 years, the investigator can predict the growth trend as provided in secondary data and databases (Sivarajah et al., 2017). The difference between supply and demand, therefore, can be used to find the presence of market opportunity.
Competition and target audience are also used by researchers to find a market gap. Market researchers use secondary data and databases to determine the level of competition. The information about competition helps in determining the type of product to launch, the amount of money needed for promotions, and optimal selection (McDaniel & Gates, 2018). For that, identifying the target audience is crucial, especially when discussing the market opportunities. Market researchers can obtain a basic estimate of possible product prices by studying how much potential customers are willing to pay.
The Role of Ethics in Incorporating Concepts of Marketing and Psychology
Ethics have a dramatic influence on companies’ culture. Increasingly, firms respond to the need to provide their guidelines and policies, which are considered helpful for managers, especially when dealing with questions of marketing ethics. Undeniably, even the best policies and guidelines cannot resolve all challenges involved in firms’ ethical decisions (Olabode et al., 2019). Marketers can choose from multiple preset principles. Legal and free-market systems are among the principles that should be chosen. Additionally, more enlightening principles entail trusting individuals with responsibilities instead of organizations and managers.
Every company and marketing manager must work out a philosophy of ethical behavior and social responsibility. For a sustainable marketing concept, companies and managers must envision beyond what is allowable and legal. Under the sustainable marketing concept, managers must look beyond what is legal and allowable and spearhead the development of standards-based on long-term consumer welfare, corporate conscience, and personal integrity (Lee & Jin, 2019). Therefore, ethics is a pre-requisite component of a firm, which shapes the behavior of every firm from top-down to the sweeper.
Price-based ethical issues are crucial for businesses that wish to focus on building a strong relationship with customers. Unethical pricing negatively impacts consumers’ attitudes, including building a relationship with the brand (Lee & Jin, 2019). Price-based ethical issues are among the vital factors considered when consumers seek to build a strong relationship with a brand. Furthermore, place-based ethical issues also affect the relationship between consumers and businesses. In this regard, sales, person’s data, and secondary data, and databases can be best used to solve place-based ethical issues.
Additionally, ethical promotion-based problems impact positively on the consumer-brand relationship. Such relationships are built when businesses hone authentic communication—having truthful and accurate information about a product, price, and promotion. Consumers are likely to exhibit trustworthiness to the business and its brand if they convey accurate information.
The psychology of a consumer is displayed in their behavior towards selecting, purchasing and consuming a product. It important for marketers to exhibit ethics by understanding consumers’ behavior to predict how they would react to a product, price, promotion, or advertising (Park et al., 2017).
Therefore, marketing researchers must include accurate psychodynamic concepts to implement marketing strategies effectively. With the articulation of psychodynamic concepts such as attitude, mental, and motivation, they are likely to determine the converging point of transforming consumers (Matz & Netzer, 2017). Moreover, studying consumers’ lifestyles is essential to understanding their behavior. Such study involves exploring the product they buy, how they consume it, and their feelings towards such products—consumer self-concept.
The Impact of Combining Marketing and Psychology
Neuroscience-oriented insights and tools are of great value to marketers and marketing researchers. Neuroscience approaches allow market researchers to understand basic neural underpinnings of psychological processes— also known as drivers of consumers’ behavior, which elucidate consumers’ minds (Abadiha, 2018). Despite its ability to generate a great deal of information, market researchers must be selective when using secondary data and databases. They need to select relevant data to prevent analyzing inaccurate, yielding falsehood information, which by extension causes failed relationships between consumers and businesses.
The effect of neuromarketing for businesses is remarkable since it has the potential to unleash automatic and implicit processes. Such processes guide consumers in decision-making; therefore, blending psychology and marketing techniques can disclose disguised information concerned with consumer behavior (Singh, 2020). This is not possible to achieve when marketing is used in isolation.
A combined psychology and marketing help reduced the errors made when using secondary data and databases in marketing research. Brown et al. (2018) noted that identification and correction of errors are essential to psychology science; hence psychological science is self-correcting. The use of psychology and marketing in any marketing research is characterized by specific attention to collecting data that suits the needs of the current marketing researcher. The output of analyzing such data would be so critical for establishing elements that would assist businesses in building successful relationships with customers.
Using combined psych-marketing approaches, the researchers’ knowledge is uplifted to a superior level of understanding consumers’ behavior. Consumers’ behaviors and preferences for a brand or product are influenced by habits, perceptions, feelings, and personal experiences. Therefore, combining psychology and marketing in marketing research prevents the risk of failed relationships between businesses and consumers.
Marketing research is an investment associated with some gain, often calculated in the form of return on investment (ROI). ROI is only maximized when marketing researchers collect relevant market data that can be used to build a successful relationship between businesses and customers (Kortam & Gad, 2020). The percentage return per annum and payback duration can be crucial when deciding on the amount to invest in secondary market research. Marketing researchers employ thrilling marketing techniques, which integrate marketing and psychology to increase ROI (Alabi et al., 2019). Example 1 given below shows how marketing research ROI is calculated.
Example 1
Firm A conducted secondary market research to find out new product concepts as well as to identify target market segments and expected product features that would produce the greatest profits. The net present value was estimated at $ 6.5 million. To gauge the relationship between the firm and its customers after carrying out the marketing research, the researcher talked with the manager of firm A to determine how confident they were with making the right choice of the new product concept, target market, and product features. In response, the managers attested that they were 30% confident before the research, but the confidence rose to 70% after the study. In addition, prior, they were 25% likely to act, which again increased to 80% after the investigation. As a result, the costs of the research were estimated at $ 600,000.
Solution
Calculation of ROI
Conclusively, marketing researchers have today normalized the use of secondary data and databases. Most of their studies are characterized by falsehood outcomes that stem from the use of inaccurate data. By extension, misleading information has contributed to failed relationships between businesses and their customers. To solve such a problem, businesses need to integrate psychology and marketing to assist in a deeper understanding of consumer behavior. In example 1, the researcher collected data relevant information, hence fostering rapid calculation of ROI, as required. Assuming the research included irrelevant information, such would have created confusion, which eventually causes miscalculations.
References
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Alabi, O. Y., Abdulrasaq, S., Abdulraheem, M., & Ayinde, R. B. (2019). Impact of Marketing Research on Organizational Productivity in Nigerian Manufacturing Industry. Web.
Brown, A. W., Kaiser, K. A., & Allison, D. B. (2018). Issues with data and analyses: Errors, underlying themes, and potential solutions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(11), 2563-2570. Web.
Kabir, S. M. S. (2016). Basic guidelines for research: an introductory approach for all disciplines. Book Zone Publication.
Kortam, W., & Gad, G. (2020). The Impact of Logic of Marketing Research on Marketing ROI: Theoretical Analysis and Empirical Investigation. Archives of Business Research (ABR), 8(1), 152-162. Web.
Lee, J. Y., & Jin, C. H. (2019). The role of ethical marketing issues in the consumer-brand relationship. Sustainability, 11(23), 6536. Web.
Matz, S. C., & Netzer, O. (2017). Using big data as a window into consumers’ psychology. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 18, 7-12. Web.
McDaniel Jr, C., & Gates, R. (2018). Marketing research. (9th ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
Olabode, S. O., Olateju, O. I., & Bakare, A. A. (2019). An assessment of the reliability of secondary data in management science research. International Journal of Business and Management Review, 7(3), 27-43. Web.
Park, E., Kim, K. J., & Kwon, S. J. (2017). Corporate social responsibility as a determinant of consumer loyalty: An examination of ethical standard, satisfaction, and trust. Journal of Business Research, 76, 8-13. Web.
Singh, S. (2020). Impact of neuromarketing applications on consumers. Journal of Business and Management, 26(2), 33-52. Web.
Sivarajah, U., Kamal, M. M., Irani, Z., & Weerakkody, V. (2017). Critical analysis of Big Data challenges and analytical methods. Journal of Business Research, 70, 263-286. Web.