The report is prepared to focus on the market research process and its four steps to develop a market research proposal for identifying a particular customer segment to which the products and services of JB Hi Fi are delivered. Marketing concept is the delivery of products and services to the customers along with the various promotional activities managed by the company to make customers aware of the products and services, furthermore enhancing the brand image and name to drive sales and gain increased profit too. According to the four steps of the marketing research process, JB Hi Fi has enabled marketing intelligence techniques for obtaining relevant information about the customers like their needs and requirements and different marketplace conditions to making necessary changes to the products and services and ensuring that those are properly delivered to the customers (Armstrong et al. 2015). By following these four steps, it has become easy for the company to collect information, collect both primary and secondary data properly and communicate the findings of the research to make appropriate business decisions (Jbhifi.com.au 2018).
Based on Kotler et al. (2013), the four major steps of conducting the marketing research are followed to define the problem or issue and develop the research objectives. This would further help in creating a proper research plan for obtaining information and data, implement the research plan properly and analyse the data. Based on the collected data and research plan, the interpretation and reporting of the findings of research are done to ensure that the products and services are marketed properly and the needs of customers can be fulfilled. Based on the entire research process, the marketing manager of JB Hi Fi identified the problem that the company was facing, which had been lack of ability to target specific customer segment and deliver products according to their needs and preferences (Morgan 2012). The marketing mix strategy, PESTLE framework, etc. helped in understanding the market conditions and the needs and preferences of the customers; furthermore make them informed about the availability of products and services delivered. However, these marketing activities, it could be easy for JB Hi Fi to deliver new products and services, attract more customers and influence their buying behaviours too. Being one of the major electronics supermarket in Australia, JB HiFi has targeted the young customers, i.e., teenagers by offering good quality laptops constituting of good configuration features and available at lower prices. The gaming laptops are currently offered by JB HiFi at reasonable prices and these boost of enhanced features to create positive mindset among the customers and influenced their buying behavior (Wirtz and Lovelock 2016).
How can a proper market research process be developed for targeting specific customer segment of JB HiFi, Australia?
Does the analysis of market conditions help in identifying the issues such as decline in sales, high cost and delay in conducting advertising research, etc.?
What are the various approaches undertaken for improving the customers’ awareness and improving the sales revenue and generation of profit?
What important measures are recommended to improve the marketing efficiency of JB HiFi?
Based on the four major steps of Kotler’s model, it is time now for the preparation of a research plan and collect necessary data and information prior to its implementation. The interpretation and reporting of findings are done to make business decisions (McDaniel and Gates 2012).
The research process is managed by selecting the appropriate research design, approaches and strategies to formulate the research design and approaches and ensure successful accomplishment of research objectives with ease and effectiveness. According to Kotler et al. (2013), not only adding new products and services to target specific customer segment is essential, but also it is important to consider the potential of the market, demographic conditions and understanding the buying behaviours and attitudes of the customers (Grabara 2013). By understanding the customers’ involvement in media platforms, the most suitable advertising and promotional strategies could be used to enhance customer awareness and ensure influencing their buying behaviours too. JB HiFi has offered good quality gaming laptops including Alienware, MSI, HP and Asus laptops at reasonable prices and even used the customer relationship management system or CRM to maximize the relationship with the customers and understand their preferences. This would promote customer loyalty and influence the buying behaviours of the customers too (Jolibert et al. 2012).
JB Hi Fi has presented the research plan by collecting necessary data and information and understood how customers can respond to the new age and highly configured laptops that are targeted to the younger generation customers. Being one of the major electronics supermarket chain in Australia, the company has a strong hold of its brand name and position, which has allowed for leveraging the brand position and influenced the consumers’ buying behaviours too. The teenagers have fascination for the gaming laptops and so the products developed are consistent with the lifestyles and behaviours of the customers. The buying patterns are understood along with the analysis of demographic conditions for understanding the brand products, its prices and where the products have been available for the customers to purchase (Armstrong et al. 2014). JB Hi Fi has made the products and services positioned in well defined market segments for remaining different from the competitors and reduce the chances of issues like decline in sales performance, not keeping customers informed about the new product line, ineffective brand positioning, etc. By analyzing the market conditions, promotional offers have been provided including the 30 months interest free, additional discounts on purchase of the laptops within specific dates. This has enhanced the brand identity and allowed people to gain information about the new products and services delivered by JB HiFi (Jbhifi.com.au 2018).
There are different types of research designs that are followed such as the exploratory, descriptive or casual research designs. The descriptive objective could also be determined by understanding various aspects including the market potential, demographic conditions, attitudes and behaviours of the consumers too. To conduct the marketing research process, the objectives are identified at first and then the marketing manager of JB HiFi has progressed through the exploratory, descriptive and casual research designs. Here, the casual research design is the most suitable because it has helped in testing the hypothesis and understood the cause and effects of the issues resulting while targeting the young adults to drive the sales of gaming laptops of JB Hi Fi (Keller and Kotler 2016).
The collection of data included both primary and secondary data collection. The primary data included both qualitative and quantitative whereas the secondary data was collected by reviewing various genuine articles, documents and websites to extract the best of information and data all throughout (Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault 2015). The qualitative data was gathered by interviewing the managers of JB Hi Fi who provided their responses and opinions based on the questions asked to them concerned with the marketing activities and strategies used to target the specific customer segment comprising of the young age customers. The quantitative data included the responses and feedbacks of the customers regarding their satisfaction with the kinds of products and services provided by the company (Malhotra, Birks and Wills 2013). Secondary data collection was much cheaper compared to primary data collection and here secondary sources such as websites, documents, blogs and articles were assessed to obtain the most suitable data and information required for conducting the research efficiently.
Ethical issues could be common while conducting marketing research processes and few of the ethical issues had been lack of confidentiality of data, not finding the most appropriate and genuine data and information from the articles, documents, journals and websites. The websites and documents from which data and information were collected had not been genuine as well, which further created difficulties in maintaining the ethical standards. The individuals whose responses and opinions were considered as major data and information collected to conduct the market research had been kept confidential and private and were not even disclosed to maintain the research privacy (Wilson et al. 2012).
Few limitations of the market research could be cost and time constraints, lack of availability of right data and information and limitations of sample size. As the market research was done by collecting data and information from very limited respondents, so a larger sample size had not been suitable. Due to limitations of time, many research areas were left uncovered, though the research had been completed somehow. With additional time and money, it would be easy and much more convenient for conducting the research considering the same topic in the future considering all the important components covered with ease and effectiveness (Creswell and Creswell 2017).
Conclusion
The report was presented to consider the four major steps of the market research process and develop a market research proposal for targeting a specific customer segment of JB HiFi. The company was facing issues like decline in sales and inappropriate positioning of products and services in the market segments, because of which, the profit level was quite low. The market research proposal enabled to identify the goals and objectives at first, created a research plan, implemented that and finally reported the findings of the research to target the specific market segments with ease. All these steps were followed to make perfect business decisions though considering the casual research design as the most suitable research design and even collecting both primary and secondary data to accomplish the research objectives. Few ethical issue and limitations included poor data confidentiality, time and cost limitations, etc. which once overcome, could help in facilitating the research process efficiency and conduct it in a detailed manner in the future.
References
Armstrong, G., Adam, S., Denize, S. and Kotler, P., 2014. Principles of marketing. Pearson Australia.
Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education.
Creswell, J.W. and Creswell, J.D., 2017. Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Sage publications.
Grabara, J., 2013. Employer’s expectations towards the employees from the marketing and management department. Polish Journal of Management Studies, 7, pp.58-70.
Jbhifi.com.au. (2018). JB Hi-Fi | JB Hi-Fi – Australia’s Largest Home Entertainment Retailer. [online] Available at: https://www.jbhifi.com.au/ [Accessed 15 Jan. 2018].
Jolibert, A., Mühlbacher, H., Flores, L. and Dubois, P.L., 2012. Marketing management: A value-creation process. Palgrave Macmillan.
Keller, K.L. and Kotler, P., 2016. Marketing management. Pearson.
Malhotra, N.K., Birks, D.F. and Wills, P., 2013. Essentials of marketing research. Pearson.
McDaniel, C. and Gates, R., 2012. Marketing research essentials. Wiley Global Education.
Morgan, N., 2012. Time for ‘mindful’destination management and marketing. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, 1(1), pp.8-9.
Taylor, S.J., Bogdan, R. and DeVault, M., 2015. Introduction to qualitative research methods: A guidebook and resource. John Wiley & Sons.
Wilson, A., Zeithaml, V.A., Bitner, M.J. and Gremler, D.D., 2012. Services marketing: Integrating customer focus across the firm. McGraw Hill.
Wirtz, J. and Lovelock, C., 2016. Services marketing: People, technology, strategy.
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