FAQ / Marketing Myths

• What is market research? Formal approach and planed of the recollection, analysis, interpretation and result of the information required for decision makers. It can be used to find and solve problems and seize opportunities. It can be obtain with quantitative or qualitative techniques.

• What are primary sources? Are the sources that provide information of first hand through questionnaires, observation or experimentation.

• What are secondary sources? Are the ones that provide information that already exists, that haven’t been created specifically for a study. Census is one of the main secondary sources used in multiple researches.

• What is Market? Actual or potential consumers with the will and the economic possibility to acquire a product.

• What’s the “market share”? It’s the percentage of sales of a product of the total of the sales of the same type of products in a specific market.

• What is a sample? Amount of people that are interviewed for a quantitative study. The size of the sample is determined by a statistical formula that includes the total size of the market (universe), the confidence level and the error degree.

• What is a Panel? It’s a group of persons that express their opinions and attitudes of a product through the time. Also it’s a new concept in the market research technologies, where a Panel is a group of hundreds, thousands or millions of people who give their personal information about consumer behavior, and are invited to participate in an online survey, that will always include a reward for their time.

• What is Benchmarking? It’s a Japanese philosophy where the competitors are analyzed to learn from them and improve even products, services, sales strategies, etc.

• What is Mystery shopping? It’s a qualitative research technique. Is when the researcher pretends to be a potential consumer and it’s for obtaining information about how is performed the sale of products/services by competitors; which are their sales arguments, how they present the quotes, their terms and conditions, times, quality of service, etc.

• What is a Focus group? It’s an interview in group, where are invited to participate between 6 and 10 persons (members of the same target market), with the objective of collect information about their needs, perceptions, feelings and preferences of related to the product. The interview is directed by a moderator, who will be asking the questions and will be in charge of get the answers of all the participants. Usually the session is videotaped to be watched very carefully after the interview, it is performed in a Gesell Chamber.

• What is a Gesell chamber? It’s a chamber used to perform a focus group study, it has two spaces divided by a mirror. From one side, the clients and specialists can sit and observe the study and on the other side the participants (regular consumers) can express their opinions about a product or a service.

• Why to invest in a market research? Usually and erroneously, decision makers based their decisions on their experience, intuition and the information they already know. There are decisions that involved financial resources and making a bad decision can produce loss of money so it’s important to have specific and reliably information to make good decisions.

• Why is better to make a study by outsourcing? Elem Mercadotecnia is a company specialized in market research but also in marketing consulting. Our team is qualified in market research and in making a good planning and implementation based on costs.

• How much does a study cost? The cost of the study depends on the project and the client needs.

• How long does it take to make a study? It depends on its requirements. The duration of the study is previously agreed with the client and if it’s necessary more time this will be mentioned to the client by explaining the reasons and both parts will be agree a new deadline.

• Is the information collected shared with others? The information collected in studies is for the exclusive use of the client. Most of the times there are confidentiality agreements to protect the client.

• What is a Segment? It’s a subgroup of persons that shows similar characteristics between them and share some needs and attributes

• What is Positioning? It’s the mental position of a product that the consumer has. Includes the feelings, experiences and all the information that the individual has about the product.

• What is Repositioning? It’s the process of changing the market’s perception of a product.

• What is a “competitive edge”? It’s a unique characteristic of a company or product that makes it superior than the competitors.

• What is a slogan? It’s a short phrase that support and enforce a brand, generally to stand out certain characteristics or the value of the brand.

• What does “share of mind” mean? It’s the set of brands of the same category of product that the consumers have in their mind.