Test marketing is a stage in marketing research whereby researchers introduce new product together with its marketing plan to a particular group of people in a given population. This developmental stage determines rejection or full launching of a product depending on the response of the sample group. It is an experiment carried out in real market situation of buying and selling without letting the buyers know of their participation in the evaluation exercise. The test runs for several weeks or months depending on the buyers’ response.
Importance of test marketing is to cushion firms from running into losses by launching a product that cannot sell. From the response of the buyers involved in test marketing, managers make decision on whether to launch the product or abandon it.
Field research is a part of marketing research where research happen in real market situation with buying and selling of products but primarily for testing purposes. On the other hand, laboratory experiments involve research in a closed facility under controlled conditions with information coming from documented data.
In field research, researchers are very close to real market situation and can establish how buyers will respond to the product once launched in the market, unlike in laboratory research where researchers bank heavily on documented data. While the data collected in field research is first hand and up to date, laboratory research use documented data that may be outdated due to changing market trends. It is possible to design field research in order to get specific information but it is impossible to design attested data to get particular information in laboratory research. Information gathered in field study is first hand thus eliminates any assumptions but laboratory work contains many assumptions.
However, field research is time consuming and expensive compared to laboratory research, which consumes less time and resources. Due to high costs, field research may involve an iota of small sample size, which does not necessarily represent the response of the whole population, but laboratory work utilize attested information from wide range populations. Nevertheless, the merits of field research outweigh those of laboratory work in marketing research.
Probability sampling is a sampling method involving random selection. This means that different units in the sampling process undergo standardizations to ensure they have equal chance (probability) of selection. On the other hand, non-probability sampling does not involve any for of random selection.
Measurement scaling falls under two categories, comparative and non-comparative measurement scaling. Reliability refers to how a given trend will be consistent after several measurements. It is thus possible to extrapolate a reliable trend and use it to predict future market trends. Validity involves determining how a given measuring instrument measures and give precise results of the phenomena under study. However, validation evaluates the measuring tool in relation to the aim of using it. This is because an instrument may be valid in measuring one phenomenon but invalid in measuring another.
Attitude scale is a way of measuring attitudes on assumption that possessing a given attitude leads to consistent patterns of response to given issues or objects. Behavior scale however, deals with how people respond to a given situation based on past exposure to the same situation. These scales are strong indicators of how people will react to a new product. However, they may give misleading results for people may react differently not necessarily depending on their attitude or experience. The assumption of these scales is that people respond to issues depending on their attitudes and experiences.
The process of questionnaire design involve identifying the purpose of the questionnaire, developing research questions and initial review followed by expert interview to gather enough beginning information. Formulation of draft paper follows together with expert review. After revising the draft paper according to expert comments, translation, revision of the questionnaire in all languages and cognitive interview testing follow. Final revision then ensues followed by interviewer training and field-testing. Final revision takes place before printing the questionnaire.
Process of data presentation and analysis: select and review the data to obtain the desired results, edit and clean it removing all errors, construct new detailed error free data and format it for analysis. This gives clean and reliable data.
Measure of central tendency are, mean, mode and median. Mode is the most frequent item; mean is the arithmetic average and median is the mid-point item. Measures of dispersion are; range, variance and standard deviation. Range is arrangement from the least to the highest, variance is the sum of all squared deviations from the mean and standard deviation is the square root of variance.
Statistical significance establishes whether the mean differences observed, occurred due to sampling error, while practical significance determines if the difference is large enough to be of value in determining the fate of null hypothesis.
Dependency is a situation where a system or a person cannot function solely without outside help. On the other hand, interdependency is a symbiotic relationship where two subjects rely on each other and both benefit from the resultant relationship.