Marketing Research, 11th Edition

CHAPTER 7Online Marketing Research: The Growth of Mobile and Social Media Research

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Examine the online world as it applies to marketing research.
2. Use the Internet to gather secondary data for marketing research.
3. Understand the nature of online focus groups, online individual depth interviews, and marketing research online communities.
4. Appreciate online survey research and ways to conduct it.
5. Learn the importance of online panel management in maintaining data quality.
6. Appraise the growing use of surveys on smart devices and the importance of social media marketing research.

Over the relatively brief history of marketing research, the practice of marketing research has always evolved with the times in response to changes in society and changes in technology.

However, the Internet has had a more profound impact in a shorter period of time than any other factor. The Internet, in combination with broadband/high-speed connections, computer developments, mobile phones, and mobile computing have come together to produce a flurry of changes unanticipated 10 or 15 years ago.

Most of these changes, probably the biggest ones, have been in the area of data acquisition. Secondary data no longer involves going to printed materials and libraries, now we can sit at our computers and have the whole world of information available at our fingertips through the use of search ...