The Importance of Market Research
This paper will examine the steps of Marketing Research and the role that it plays in the marketing mix of product, place, price and promotion. The marketing mix is guided by marketing strategy made up of factors that are under company control and collected into four groups of variables known as the four P’s: product, place, price, and promotion (Kerin, R.A., Hartley, S.W., Berkowitz, E.N., & Rudelius, W., 2009). The organization selected for this examination will be the current company with which I am employed, Apartment Management Consultants (AMC).
AMC
AMC is a fairly new full service property/asset management company, established in 2000. The company has already become a premiere apartment management company. AMC has an owner friendly management structure with a focus on maximized earnings of the client’s real estate investment. Individual attention is given to each property with a thorough analysis, a variety of resources to yield high returns, and comprehensive property management skills. AMC has over 200 management properties in 10 states and large number of partnership value to offer their clients (About Us: AMC, 2011.).
AMC is structured to operate in a long-term capacity and can operate as a buffer between management and ownership. We can provide monthly reports to our clients consisting of; monthly financial statement review (providing trend reports of any fluctuation in performance), impartial market reviews, physical condition reports (providing pictures and descriptions of any deferred maintenance items), capital improvements (tracking owner or lender mandated repairs), quarterly resident surveys, and an overall monthly summary of operations. After intense market study, we wil...
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...mand, the price residents are willing to pay, and where the advertising dollar will benefit most.
AMC uses marketing research daily to determine traffic, advertising, expiring leases, maintenance, spending, and bank deposits. Marketing research is an important process that gives AMC, and the owner’s, a real-time view of the progress that is made at any given property. The information that is received can be analyzed and proper adjustments can be made in order to help management and business successful.
Works Cited
Apartment Management Consultants Corporation. (2011, August 19). About Us: AMC. Retrieved August 19, 2011, from AMC Web site: http://www.amcllc.net.
Kerin, R.A., Hartley, S.W., Berkowitz, E.N., & Rudelius, W. . (2009). Marketing. New York, N.Y.: McGraw Hill.
McDonald Jr., C. G. (2007). Marketing Research, Seventh Edition. John Wiley & Sons.
The company first needs to collect demographic and geographic information relevant to potential store location choices in order to segment its market. It is extremely important that the marketing team gather thorough information in order to ensure they are focusing efforts in areas where the company’s products will be best received. This will help them in achieving maximum sales.
After analyzing CVS/Caremark’s annual report, I conclude that CVS has many items. However, more specifically, CVS holds a considerable amount of land that many buildings exist upon. These buildings of course require improvements to continue operation in not only the retail sector, rather the delivery of many medications through the mail. These all require buildings to store the vast amount of items that CVS possesses. Other items include equipment and fixtures, software and leasehold improvements.
The responses from tenants tend to revolve around three of the same topics. Our tenants tell us that:
"CAMDEN PROPERTY TRUST." Journal of Property Management 76.3 (2011): 54-55. Business Source Premier. EBSCO. Web. 18 Oct. 2011.
An organization must use a strategic marketing process to distribute its marketing mix resources to reach its target markets. The elements of a proper marketing mix are price, product, place, and promotion. They are the four P’s of the marketing process (Goi, 2009)
Market research assists a company to determine the best media outlets to place their advertisements. For instance, a youth-based market may prefer an online advertisement while older customers may opt for radio stations and television adverts.
Marketing is a process of determining a consumer’s needs, devising a product or service to satisfy those needs, and trying to focus customers on the goods and services you are offering. Marketing is extremely important, and a fundamental building block for business growth. A marketing team is given the task of creating customer awareness through a variety of different marketing techniques. If a business does not pay close attention to their consumer demographic and needs, they will eventually fail over time. Two important aspects of marketing include acquiring new customers, and the preservation and growth of relationships with current customers. Marketing has always been viewed as a creative outlet, which encompassed advertising, distribution, and the selling of goods and services. Marketing staff will also try to anticipate what customers will want in the future, often being accomplished with market research. In summation, a good marketing plan should be able to create a favorable proposition or series of benefits that a customer can value through goods or services. The marketing mix is normally described as the strategic positioning of a product or service in the marketplace, using the specification of the four Ps. During the early 1960’s, Professor E. Jerome McCarthy of Harvard Business School stated that a marketing mix contains four elements. The four key points are product, pricing, promotion, and placement. It is recognized that all these aspects must be present to ensure a successful business model within a given industry. We will now take a thorough look at the four marketing mix points.
We have come to the phase that allows Team A to apply the research tools and implement a market research plan. Team A will review various marketing research tools that are available for researchers to use such as secondary research, secondary on-line research, exploratory research, nondirective interviews, and the Likert scale. Our secondary research is showing that consumers are demanding healthier menu options. This market research implementation plan will develop several market research tools; including questionnaires’ and the Likert scale to verify if McDonald’s consumers genuinely want and will purchase healthier menu items.
To be a successful business, the owner of the business should use the marketing mix and the results of market research; having identified its key audience a company has to ensure a marketing mix is created that is targeted specifically to those people. The marketing mix is a term used to describe the four main marketing tools, Price, Product, Promotion and Place (EStartup business blog, 2010). An example of each 4P’s are: which products are well received, what prices consumers are willing to pay, what TV programs, newspapers and advertising consu...
According to the text, marketing research is defined by the American Marketing Association as "The systematic gathering, recording, and analyzing of data with respect to a particular market, where market refers to a specific customer group in a specific geographic area" (McDaniel & Gates, pg. 6). Marketing research serves two basic functions; first to provide data and insight to a company's decision makers and second to use the data to determine new opportunities for a company (McDaniel & Gates, pg. 6). Through the years, Marriott has used market research for opportunities to expand its brands. In the 1980's Marriott identified an opportunity to expand its target market a...
The Marriott Corporation (MC), had seen a long, successful reign in the hospitality industry until the late 1980s. An economic downturn and the 1990 real estate crash resulted in MC owning newly developed hotel properties with no potential buyers in sight and a mound of debt. During the late 1980s, MC had promised in their annual reports to sell off some of their hotel properties and reduce their burden of debt. However, the company made little progress toward fulfilling that promise. During 1992, MC realized that financial results were only slightly up from the previous year and their ability to raise funds in the capital market was severely limited. MC was left with little choice, as they had to consider some major changes within the company if they wished to remain a successful business. Thus, J.W. Marriott, Jr., Chairman of the board and president of MC, turned to Stephen Bollenbach, the new chief financial officer, for ideas and guidance.
In all reality, all businesses will, in some way shape or form, complete all of the marketing activities, even if completing these activities is not their main goal. (Dlabay 2006.) These marketing activities are product, place, price, and promotion. A business tool called that marketing mix takes all of these activities and puts them together in a way that can be used to help improve a business’s marketing strategy. Product is what the company is selling; Place is where the consumer will obtain this product; Price is what the consumer will pay for the product; Promotion is any type of communication that is intended to remind, inform, or persuade. (Dlabay 2006.) The marketing mix and the four P’s describe very well what business marketing is all about.
Kotler, P., & Keller, K. (2012). Marketing management (14th ed., Global ed.). Boston, [Mass.: Pearson.
In 2014, the value of Property, Plant and Equipment (PPE) for Martinrea Inc. increased by $137,133,000, or 16.2% YoY. Net additions of $201,833,000 in land and buildings, leasehold improvements, manufacturing equipment, other assets, and construction in progress and spare parts increased the total value of PPE. Accumulated depreciation, totaling $110,783,000, brought the net book value down, and conversion from foreign currencies caused the final value to increase by $137,133,000. These additions to PPE are most likely meant for growth of manufacturing and assembly lines, as Martinrea suggests they are purchasing more to invest in expansion programs, which is typical for such a capital intensive business.
The factors that have a great influence on marketing management, marketers’ business decision-making, and their relationship with customers include macro- and micro-environment, and the latter in turn includes the concept of so-called “4 P’s” (i.e., product, place, promotion, and price). Micro-environment is also referred to as “immediate environment” and stands for the factors that are literally “close” to a certain company: its suppliers, customers, intermediaries (e.g., advertising agencies), and competitors (“Marketing environment,” n.d.) Four P’s are also called “the marketing mix,” and their most widely used interpretation belongs to McCarthy (Blythe, 2008). The marketing mix indicates the four aspects of how to make your business profitable and yourself proficient as a marketing specialist. As Cannon (1992) pointed out, “The marketing mix is the set of controllable variables that the firm can use to influence the buyer’s response.” First, the business person needs to understand what the product of consumer’s desire is. It is obvious that “an undesired product” will not be sold. Producers, however, may invent something that consumers even did not expect to have but really wanted, at least, unconscious...