Marks and Spencers - Marketing Mix

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Marker research is gathering and recording data to have a better understanding of the market trends and customer behaviour so that you can provide goods or services that the customer’s needs. M&S use market research in order to develop and extend their knowledge of the customers’ needs and what they feel towards M&S products and services. This is a way of increasing sales by finding out what the customer wants and this will help meet and may also exceed expectations of sales and customer satisfaction. M&S’s use specialised market research companies who collect data for them to spot trends and what products customers buy when shopping in the shop. These market research companies have the resources and employees to quickly compile all the information which has increased the time from comparing seasonal trends to weekly trends.

Primary research is carried out by a business to gather opinions in order to achieve the highest quality possible. M&S use this to gather customer’s opinions on the quality of products and also customers’ needs and expectations. Primary research is mainly gathered through Questionnaires, interviews, surveys and consumer panels. M&S would have applied primary research through surveys and face to face feedback.  This helps them develop on their services and goods they provide and as a result make the business better as a hole. As a result of primary research through questionnaires and face to face feedback M&S have improved things like there brand awareness and increased their amount of stores to attract more customers on a national scale. These are all ways of increasing profit and helping M&S grow and get more profit. This is help M&S reach goals and targets they have been set to reach in the calendar year.

Questionnaire

Questionnaire is a list of questions are asked to consumers with the objective of gathering specific information from them. Questionnaires are an important way of gathering information because it is an easy way to get the public’s opinions on specific areas they need feedback on. There are many different forms of questionnaire from personal to awareness.

Personal questionnaire

In this questionnaire the researcher is required to ask the questionnaires to the consumer face to face. This is a costly way to do a questionnaire because you have to pay an employee, then find a suitable locations to ask the questions. Finding the right location is a challenge in itself due to trying to find an area where you asking people to take the time out of their day is not an inconvenience. This is the most unreliable form of market research due to people not wanting to say anything bad about the store and by doing this face to face people would feel awkward about saying that things are bad.

Postal Questionnaire

This is a questionnaire which is posted to home owners in a certain area and maybe to even business in an area. There is a low cost to produce and post the questionnaires compared to the other types, with also getting more people giving their honest opinion because it can be anonymous. The only problem with postal questionnaires are that very few people will sit and complete then return the questionnaire so they are getting very minimal results.

Telephone questionnaire

A telephone questionnaire involves a researcher asking questions to a consumer through a telephone to complete the questions asked. This is costly due to having to pay for how long you are on the phone and the initially cost of calling the number meaning that you will incur charges. Most people will not answer the phone or hang up if the person calling them is trying to complete a questionnaire meaning you will not have many answers.