Evaluate the market research methods used by a selected organisation

In this assignment I will be evaluating the market research methods use by our group, in hosting our event.

Our group used survey as a market research method. The reason why we chose this method is because it was quick to create and easy to carry out. In the same day that we got people to take part in the survey, we also were able to create graphs and post into our blogs. This was an effective way of finding out market because it wasn’t time consuming like other research methods would have been. If we had using this research method doesn’t allow for individual opinion to be heard. As we are conducting survey we want to know peoples decision behind the answers they gave. That is the problem with this method. However not giving the option of allowing people to express their thoughts makes it easier for us to make decisions. An example is that we asked in our survey what would be a good price to pay for a game for. The majority answered 0-49p; However in the other categories (as seen below) people chose. It would have been better for our group if we knew why they made that decision and possibly could have catered for them in our event.

One of our aims for this project, was to actually hold one; then if succesfull we would do it again and would be better because we would have used the mistakes and feedback and worked on it. Having this thought in mind, when people came to play games at our event, we let them freely write down contact details if they wished to be contacted after the event, in order for us to gain feedback from them. It was two simple questions asked what went well and even better if. We didn’t give them a deadline to follow but rather we gave them an incentive; which was a chance to win a ps4. By doing this we received replies almost instantly. Some even gave feedback during their waiting time to play the next game. However with this method of customer feedback; it is not guaranteed that everyone would get back to you, especially if no incentive for the customer is left for them to do so. On the other hand feedback that was given enabled us to improve on the next event hopefully.

“Event didn’t start when it was supposed to “

“Seating was poor “

“Not enough refreshments “

“Why there wasn’t enough change made available”

These items of feedback were noted down and for any event in the future, these problems would be sorted.

Sampling method is used by medical companies to test out new drugs. Money is used as an incentive to attract people.

Telephone surveys can be used as a marketing research method but it can be annoying. It’s not as cheap as the other methods. However the cost can be lowered if it’s an automated person rather than an actually person speaking. This is very difficult because if you want to carry out research you would need a person to be speaking to potential customers because more often than not if a customer is replying to another human the person carry out the survey can adapt and empathise with the customer and try to convince the customer to take part. Whereas automated voice, doesn’t allow this, making it rather cheaper than using a person. In our group we wasn’t able to use this marketing research method because our target audience wasn’t that wide enough so it would have been useless because we are aiming at students and staff in the college.