Assignment Prompt & Instructions
– a year ago
**files (2)**
– ## AdvancedMarketingMKT5301UnitIIDB.docx
– ## UnitIIStudyGuide.pdf
**## AdvancedMarketingMKT5301UnitIIDB.docx**
2
Advanced Marketing MKT 5301
Unit II DB
Companies need to understand their ability to compete and the environment in which they must compete. Of the strategy planning tools they have available, the PEST (political, economic, sociocultural, and technology) analysis has been shown to be very effective. Do you believe that companies who have a planning culture and use planning tools, such as the PEST analysis, can perform better in the long run than their industry competitors, who may not use similar planning tools? Why, or why not?
• Should be at least 300 words in length.
• Should include at least one APA-formatted scholarly, professional, or textbook reference with accompanying in-text citation to support any paraphrased, summarized, or quoted material.
**## UnitIIStudyGuide.pdf**
MKT 5301, Advanced Marketing 1
Course Learning Outcomes for Unit II
Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:
2. Synthesize the use of marketing research to predict global business outcomes.
2.1 Compile a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis in order to
research the internal environment of a company.
2.2 Analyze a PEST (political, economic, sociocultural, and technology) analysis in order to
research the external environment of a company.
3. Analyze the use of marketing strategies in the management of global customer brand equity.
3.2 Examine potential marketing strategy alternatives for a company.
3.3 Determine marketing strategy solutions for a company.
Required Unit Resources
Chapter 5: Conducting Marketing Research
Unit Lesson
When starting a business, entrepreneurs have high hopes of providing customer offerings to not only satisfy
their customers’ needs and wants but also to delight many of them. In doing so, they hope their products will
move many of their customers to become outspoken brand advocates. It is further hoped that these
advocates will share their positive product experiences with their respective like-minded communities. The
entrepreneur hopes the brand advocates’ like-minded community members will also be moved to purchase
and exhort their positive product experiences even further across similar virtual communities.
This scenario would not have been possible a few years ago before the Internet and social media existed.
Until then, consumers had been anonymous and unknown to each other. They could only seek or provide
information to the marketer on a singular basis. As such, they were described as targets (i.e., something to be
hunted and captured).
The Internet provided a disruptive change to this traditional marketing scenario. Consumers are now able to
form like-minded digital communities where they may share their product experiences, seek advice, and
caution others of any suspect products and potentially misleading claims. In other words, customers are no
longer anonymous targets to be grouped, collected, and harvested. This does not mean that gathering
research on customers is no longer necessary. Rather, marketing research is more important than ever.
If you were going to put together a start-up company, think about the external factors that would impact your
company. These external factors have a significant impact on your company from both a domestic and an
international perspective. The underlying impact is substantial as the business owner does not have control of
these external factors. Developing an understanding of how these factors impact the overall organization will
enable the manager to effectively manage these changing factors. A tool used by marketing managers is the
PEST (political, economic, social, and technological) analysis. This tool analyzes how changes in the political
and legal environment impact the organization. It also examines how changes in the economic environment
impact the organization. Additionally, it evaluates how changes in the sociocultural environment impact the
organization. Finally, it analyzes how changes in the technological environment impact the organization.
UNIT II STUDY GUIDE
Ethics, Research, and a
Customer World View
MKT 5301, Advanced Marketing 2
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
(Kotler et al., 2022)
For this unit’s assignment, you will conduct a PEST analysis and examine the impact of these environmental
changes on your start-up organization. Franzini and Sadeghian (2017) describe how the PEST analysis
enables the researcher and the stakeholders within an organization to understand external factors that will
affect the organization. While these factors are absolutely not controllable, the goal is to develop an
understanding and to make changes within the organization to minimize the negative impact of these external
changes.
Beyond the external factors that are associated with the PEST analysis, there are several other
considerations when analyzing the external environment. Industry health and competitive pressures will also
impact the overall operation of the business. These will be discussed in greater detail in subsequent units. In
developing an understanding of the external and internal environments of an organization, the execution of a
strategic marketing research plan is key. The world changes at an incredibly fast pace, which supports the
need for a continuous research plan. A firm’s marketing information system allows a company to track
changes and modify product or service offerings, distribution plans, pricing strategies, or even the methods
used to communicate the benefits of the product or service to the target market (promotion).
Review the Identifying Populations Interactive Activity for more information (alternative format for Identifying
Populations Interactive Activity).
MKT 5301, Advanced Marketing 3
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
According to the American Marketing Association (2017), the definition of marketing research is below:
The function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information—
information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and
evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing
as a process. Marketing research specifies the information required to address these issues, designs
the method for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes
the results, and communicates the findings and their implications. (para. 3)
At its very basic form, the marketing research process can be viewed through a series of steps as described
below.
As the researcher moves through these steps, the methods to gather the research must be determined. The
first decision is whether to conduct a focus group, a survey, or behavioral research. Focus group research
suggests that the researcher gathers eight to 10 carefully selected individuals with the designated purpose of
acquiring their opinions on a topic through a discussion forum. Survey research offers the respondents with a
series of questions, either in paper form or electronically. These responses are then tabulated, and
conclusions are drawn. Behavioral research draws conclusions based upon the buying behaviors of
consumers. This research is typically gathered based upon observations or the accumulation of buying
records, such as cash register records. A survey is one of the most widely used research methods today
because this is one of the most cost-effective methods of gathering large amounts of data. Survey types
include telephone interviews; U.S. mail surveys; email surveys; or popular online survey methods, such as
Survey Monkey. Researchers need to understand that consumers today are time poor, and they really have
little time to respond to questionnaires. With that in mind, the survey needs to be organized to allow
respondents to finish the survey quickly. As one might imagine, gathering data from consumers is not always
an easy task.
Through these steps, the market researcher attempts to gather research, perform the statistical analysis, and
solve the problem within the organization. The data is stored in a database, which has expanded to include
significant quantities of data. With today’s technology, we can store vast amounts of data and review the data
cumulatively, which allows marketers to understand the relevance between different areas of the data. This
collection of data is considered to be incredibly valuable by market researchers. The final step in the process
is for the researcher to be able to communicate the research results. This must be done at the appropriate
levels within the organization and, in many cases, to multiple stakeholders. A recent challenge for marketers
MKT 5301, Advanced Marketing 4
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
is the use of ad blockers by consumers to avoid advertisers. Companies are using embedded messages, viral
events, and games, which all use data and analytics to create content more appealing to the consumer.
Business marketing strategists are becoming proactive in the use of market research that can impact change
and increase the overall effectiveness of a company’s marketing and advertising campaigns.
Coming Up
Throughout this course, you will be compiling a digital marketing brief for a fictional company. This will be a
comprehensive digital marketing brief that you will compile in Units IV, VI, and VIII. While this is a cumulative
brief, each part should be submitted separately, as described in the assignment instructions.
References
American Marketing Association. (2017). Definition of marketing research. https://www.ama.org/the-definition-
of-marketing
Franzini, B., & Sadeghian, K. (2017). How will a new administration impact my business? Policy, data and
business intelligence. Business Intelligence Journal, 22(3), 44–51.
https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direc
t=true&db=bsu&AN=125246948&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Kotler, P., Keller, K. L., & Chernev, A. (2022). Marketing management (16th ed.). Pearson.
https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9780135887035
**## UnitIIStudyGuide.pdf**
MKT 5301, Advanced Marketing 1
Course Learning Outcomes for Unit II
Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:
2. Synthesize the use of marketing research to predict global business outcomes.
2.1 Compile a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis in order to
research the internal environment of a company.
2.2 Analyze a PEST (political, economic, sociocultural, and technology) analysis in order to
research the external environment of a company.
3. Analyze the use of marketing strategies in the management of global customer brand equity.
3.2 Examine potential marketing strategy alternatives for a company.
3.3 Determine marketing strategy solutions for a company.
Required Unit Resources
Chapter 5: Conducting Marketing Research
Unit Lesson
When starting a business, entrepreneurs have high hopes of providing customer offerings to not only satisfy
their customers’ needs and wants but also to delight many of them. In doing so, they hope their products will
move many of their customers to become outspoken brand advocates. It is further hoped that these
advocates will share their positive product experiences with their respective like-minded communities. The
entrepreneur hopes the brand advocates’ like-minded community members will also be moved to purchase
and exhort their positive product experiences even further across similar virtual communities.
This scenario would not have been possible a few years ago before the Internet and social media existed.
Until then, consumers had been anonymous and unknown to each other. They could only seek or provide
information to the marketer on a singular basis. As such, they were described as targets (i.e., something to be
hunted and captured).
The Internet provided a disruptive change to this traditional marketing scenario. Consumers are now able to
form like-minded digital communities where they may share their product experiences, seek advice, and
caution others of any suspect products and potentially misleading claims. In other words, customers are no
longer anonymous targets to be grouped, collected, and harvested. This does not mean that gathering
research on customers is no longer necessary. Rather, marketing research is more important than ever.
If you were going to put together a start-up company, think about the external factors that would impact your
company. These external factors have a significant impact on your company from both a domestic and an
international perspective. The underlying impact is substantial as the business owner does not have control of
these external factors. Developing an understanding of how these factors impact the overall organization will
enable the manager to effectively manage these changing factors. A tool used by marketing managers is the
PEST (political, economic, social, and technological) analysis. This tool analyzes how changes in the political
and legal environment impact the organization. It also examines how changes in the economic environment
impact the organization. Additionally, it evaluates how changes in the sociocultural environment impact the
organization. Finally, it analyzes how changes in the technological environment impact the organization.
UNIT II STUDY GUIDE
Ethics, Research, and a
Customer World View
MKT 5301, Advanced Marketing 2
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
(Kotler et al., 2022)
For this unit’s assignment, you will conduct a PEST analysis and examine the impact of these environmental
changes on your start-up organization. Franzini and Sadeghian (2017) describe how the PEST analysis
enables the researcher and the stakeholders within an organization to understand external factors that will
affect the organization. While these factors are absolutely not controllable, the goal is to develop an
understanding and to make changes within the organization to minimize the negative impact of these external
changes.
Beyond the external factors that are associated with the PEST analysis, there are several other
considerations when analyzing the external environment. Industry health and competitive pressures will also
impact the overall operation of the business. These will be discussed in greater detail in subsequent units. In
developing an understanding of the external and internal environments of an organization, the execution of a
strategic marketing research plan is key. The world changes at an incredibly fast pace, which supports the
need for a continuous research plan. A firm’s marketing information system allows a company to track
changes and modify product or service offerings, distribution plans, pricing strategies, or even the methods
used to communicate the benefits of the product or service to the target market (promotion).
Review the Identifying Populations Interactive Activity for more information (alternative format for Identifying
Populations Interactive Activity).
MKT 5301, Advanced Marketing 3
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
According to the American Marketing Association (2017), the definition of marketing research is below:
The function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information—
information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and
evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing
as a process. Marketing research specifies the information required to address these issues, designs
the method for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes
the results, and communicates the findings and their implications. (para. 3)
At its very basic form, the marketing research process can be viewed through a series of steps as described
below.
As the researcher moves through these steps, the methods to gather the research must be determined. The
first decision is whether to conduct a focus group, a survey, or behavioral research. Focus group research
suggests that the researcher gathers eight to 10 carefully selected individuals with the designated purpose of
acquiring their opinions on a topic through a discussion forum. Survey research offers the respondents with a
series of questions, either in paper form or electronically. These responses are then tabulated, and
conclusions are drawn. Behavioral research draws conclusions based upon the buying behaviors of
consumers. This research is typically gathered based upon observations or the accumulation of buying
records, such as cash register records. A survey is one of the most widely used research methods today
because this is one of the most cost-effective methods of gathering large amounts of data. Survey types
include telephone interviews; U.S. mail surveys; email surveys; or popular online survey methods, such as
Survey Monkey. Researchers need to understand that consumers today are time poor, and they really have
little time to respond to questionnaires. With that in mind, the survey needs to be organized to allow
respondents to finish the survey quickly. As one might imagine, gathering data from consumers is not always
an easy task.
Through these steps, the market researcher attempts to gather research, perform the statistical analysis, and
solve the problem within the organization. The data is stored in a database, which has expanded to include
significant quantities of data. With today’s technology, we can store vast amounts of data and review the data
cumulatively, which allows marketers to understand the relevance between different areas of the data. This
collection of data is considered to be incredibly valuable by market researchers. The final step in the process
is for the researcher to be able to communicate the research results. This must be done at the appropriate
levels within the organization and, in many cases, to multiple stakeholders. A recent challenge for marketers
MKT 5301, Advanced Marketing 4
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
is the use of ad blockers by consumers to avoid advertisers. Companies are using embedded messages, viral
events, and games, which all use data and analytics to create content more appealing to the consumer.
Business marketing strategists are becoming proactive in the use of market research that can impact change
and increase the overall effectiveness of a company’s marketing and advertising campaigns.
Coming Up
Throughout this course, you will be compiling a digital marketing brief for a fictional company. This will be a
comprehensive digital marketing brief that you will compile in Units IV, VI, and VIII. While this is a cumulative
brief, each part should be submitted separately, as described in the assignment instructions.
References
American Marketing Association. (2017). Definition of marketing research. https://www.ama.org/the-definition-
of-marketing
Franzini, B., & Sadeghian, K. (2017). How will a new administration impact my business? Policy, data and
business intelligence. Business Intelligence Journal, 22(3), 44–51.
https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direc
t=true&db=bsu&AN=125246948&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Kotler, P., Keller, K. L., & Chernev, A. (2022). Marketing management (16th ed.). Pearson.
https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9780135887035
**## AdvancedMarketingMKT5301UnitIIDB.docx**
2
Advanced Marketing MKT 5301
Unit II DB
Companies need to understand their ability to compete and the environment in which they must compete. Of the strategy planning tools they have available, the PEST (political, economic, sociocultural, and technology) analysis has been shown to be very effective. Do you believe that companies who have a planning culture and use planning tools, such as the PEST analysis, can perform better in the long run than their industry competitors, who may not use similar planning tools? Why, or why not?
• Should be at least 300 words in length.
• Should include at least one APA-formatted scholarly, professional, or textbook reference with accompanying in-text citation to support any paraphrased, summarized, or quoted material.
**## UnitIIStudyGuide.pdf**
MKT 5301, Advanced Marketing 1
Course Learning Outcomes for Unit II
Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:
2. Synthesize the use of marketing research to predict global business outcomes.
2.1 Compile a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis in order to
research the internal environment of a company.
2.2 Analyze a PEST (political, economic, sociocultural, and technology) analysis in order to
research the external environment of a company.
3. Analyze the use of marketing strategies in the management of global customer brand equity.
3.2 Examine potential marketing strategy alternatives for a company.
3.3 Determine marketing strategy solutions for a company.
Required Unit Resources
Chapter 5: Conducting Marketing Research
Unit Lesson
When starting a business, entrepreneurs have high hopes of providing customer offerings to not only satisfy
their customers’ needs and wants but also to delight many of them. In doing so, they hope their products will
move many of their customers to become outspoken brand advocates. It is further hoped that these
advocates will share their positive product experiences with their respective like-minded communities. The
entrepreneur hopes the brand advocates’ like-minded community members will also be moved to purchase
and exhort their positive product experiences even further across similar virtual communities.
This scenario would not have been possible a few years ago before the Internet and social media existed.
Until then, consumers had been anonymous and unknown to each other. They could only seek or provide
information to the marketer on a singular basis. As such, they were described as targets (i.e., something to be
hunted and captured).
The Internet provided a disruptive change to this traditional marketing scenario. Consumers are now able to
form like-minded digital communities where they may share their product experiences, seek advice, and
caution others of any suspect products and potentially misleading claims. In other words, customers are no
longer anonymous targets to be grouped, collected, and harvested. This does not mean that gathering
research on customers is no longer necessary. Rather, marketing research is more important than ever.
If you were going to put together a start-up company, think about the external factors that would impact your
company. These external factors have a significant impact on your company from both a domestic and an
international perspective. The underlying impact is substantial as the business owner does not have control of
these external factors. Developing an understanding of how these factors impact the overall organization will
enable the manager to effectively manage these changing factors. A tool used by marketing managers is the
PEST (political, economic, social, and technological) analysis. This tool analyzes how changes in the political
and legal environment impact the organization. It also examines how changes in the economic environment
impact the organization. Additionally, it evaluates how changes in the sociocultural environment impact the
organization. Finally, it analyzes how changes in the technological environment impact the organization.
UNIT II STUDY GUIDE
Ethics, Research, and a
Customer World View
MKT 5301, Advanced Marketing 2
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
(Kotler et al., 2022)
For this unit’s assignment, you will conduct a PEST analysis and examine the impact of these environmental
changes on your start-up organization. Franzini and Sadeghian (2017) describe how the PEST analysis
enables the researcher and the stakeholders within an organization to understand external factors that will
affect the organization. While these factors are absolutely not controllable, the goal is to develop an
understanding and to make changes within the organization to minimize the negative impact of these external
changes.
Beyond the external factors that are associated with the PEST analysis, there are several other
considerations when analyzing the external environment. Industry health and competitive pressures will also
impact the overall operation of the business. These will be discussed in greater detail in subsequent units. In
developing an understanding of the external and internal environments of an organization, the execution of a
strategic marketing research plan is key. The world changes at an incredibly fast pace, which supports the
need for a continuous research plan. A firm’s marketing information system allows a company to track
changes and modify product or service offerings, distribution plans, pricing strategies, or even the methods
used to communicate the benefits of the product or service to the target market (promotion).
Review the Identifying Populations Interactive Activity for more information (alternative format for Identifying
Populations Interactive Activity).
MKT 5301, Advanced Marketing 3
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
According to the American Marketing Association (2017), the definition of marketing research is below:
The function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information—
information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and
evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing
as a process. Marketing research specifies the information required to address these issues, designs
the method for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes
the results, and communicates the findings and their implications. (para. 3)
At its very basic form, the marketing research process can be viewed through a series of steps as described
below.
As the researcher moves through these steps, the methods to gather the research must be determined. The
first decision is whether to conduct a focus group, a survey, or behavioral research. Focus group research
suggests that the researcher gathers eight to 10 carefully selected individuals with the designated purpose of
acquiring their opinions on a topic through a discussion forum. Survey research offers the respondents with a
series of questions, either in paper form or electronically. These responses are then tabulated, and
conclusions are drawn. Behavioral research draws conclusions based upon the buying behaviors of
consumers. This research is typically gathered based upon observations or the accumulation of buying
records, such as cash register records. A survey is one of the most widely used research methods today
because this is one of the most cost-effective methods of gathering large amounts of data. Survey types
include telephone interviews; U.S. mail surveys; email surveys; or popular online survey methods, such as
Survey Monkey. Researchers need to understand that consumers today are time poor, and they really have
little time to respond to questionnaires. With that in mind, the survey needs to be organized to allow
respondents to finish the survey quickly. As one might imagine, gathering data from consumers is not always
an easy task.
Through these steps, the market researcher attempts to gather research, perform the statistical analysis, and
solve the problem within the organization. The data is stored in a database, which has expanded to include
significant quantities of data. With today’s technology, we can store vast amounts of data and review the data
cumulatively, which allows marketers to understand the relevance between different areas of the data. This
collection of data is considered to be incredibly valuable by market researchers. The final step in the process
is for the researcher to be able to communicate the research results. This must be done at the appropriate
levels within the organization and, in many cases, to multiple stakeholders. A recent challenge for marketers
MKT 5301, Advanced Marketing 4
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
is the use of ad blockers by consumers to avoid advertisers. Companies are using embedded messages, viral
events, and games, which all use data and analytics to create content more appealing to the consumer.
Business marketing strategists are becoming proactive in the use of market research that can impact change
and increase the overall effectiveness of a company’s marketing and advertising campaigns.
Coming Up
Throughout this course, you will be compiling a digital marketing brief for a fictional company. This will be a
comprehensive digital marketing brief that you will compile in Units IV, VI, and VIII. While this is a cumulative
brief, each part should be submitted separately, as described in the assignment instructions.
References
American Marketing Association. (2017). Definition of marketing research. https://www.ama.org/the-definition-
of-marketing
Franzini, B., & Sadeghian, K. (2017). How will a new administration impact my business? Policy, data and
business intelligence. Business Intelligence Journal, 22(3), 44–51.
https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direc
t=true&db=bsu&AN=125246948&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Kotler, P., Keller, K. L., & Chernev, A. (2022). Marketing management (16th ed.). Pearson.
https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9780135887035
**## AdvancedMarketingMKT5301UnitIIDB.docx**
2
Advanced Marketing MKT 5301
Unit II DB
Companies need to understand their ability to compete and the environment in which they must compete. Of the strategy planning tools they have available, the PEST (political, economic, sociocultural, and technology) analysis has been shown to be very effective. Do you believe that companies who have a planning culture and use planning tools, such as the PEST analysis, can perform better in the long run than their industry competitors, who may not use similar planning tools? Why, or why not?
• Should be at least 300 words in length.
• Should include at least one APA-formatted scholarly, professional, or textbook reference with accompanying in-text citation to support any paraphrased, summarized, or quoted material.
**## UnitIIStudyGuide.pdf**
MKT 5301, Advanced Marketing 1
Course Learning Outcomes for Unit II
Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:
2. Synthesize the use of marketing research to predict global business outcomes.
2.1 Compile a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis in order to
research the internal environment of a company.
2.2 Analyze a PEST (political, economic, sociocultural, and technology) analysis in order to
research the external environment of a company.
3. Analyze the use of marketing strategies in the management of global customer brand equity.
3.2 Examine potential marketing strategy alternatives for a company.
3.3 Determine marketing strategy solutions for a company.
Required Unit Resources
Chapter 5: Conducting Marketing Research
Unit Lesson
When starting a business, entrepreneurs have high hopes of providing customer offerings to not only satisfy
their customers’ needs and wants but also to delight many of them. In doing so, they hope their products will
move many of their customers to become outspoken brand advocates. It is further hoped that these
advocates will share their positive product experiences with their respective like-minded communities. The
entrepreneur hopes the brand advocates’ like-minded community members will also be moved to purchase
and exhort their positive product experiences even further across similar virtual communities.
This scenario would not have been possible a few years ago before the Internet and social media existed.
Until then, consumers had been anonymous and unknown to each other. They could only seek or provide
information to the marketer on a singular basis. As such, they were described as targets (i.e., something to be
hunted and captured).
The Internet provided a disruptive change to this traditional marketing scenario. Consumers are now able to
form like-minded digital communities where they may share their product experiences, seek advice, and
caution others of any suspect products and potentially misleading claims. In other words, customers are no
longer anonymous targets to be grouped, collected, and harvested. This does not mean that gathering
research on customers is no longer necessary. Rather, marketing research is more important than ever.
If you were going to put together a start-up company, think about the external factors that would impact your
company. These external factors have a significant impact on your company from both a domestic and an
international perspective. The underlying impact is substantial as the business owner does not have control of
these external factors. Developing an understanding of how these factors impact the overall organization will
enable the manager to effectively manage these changing factors. A tool used by marketing managers is the
PEST (political, economic, social, and technological) analysis. This tool analyzes how changes in the political
and legal environment impact the organization. It also examines how changes in the economic environment
impact the organization. Additionally, it evaluates how changes in the sociocultural environment impact the
organization. Finally, it analyzes how changes in the technological environment impact the organization.
UNIT II STUDY GUIDE
Ethics, Research, and a
Customer World View
MKT 5301, Advanced Marketing 2
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
(Kotler et al., 2022)
For this unit’s assignment, you will conduct a PEST analysis and examine the impact of these environmental
changes on your start-up organization. Franzini and Sadeghian (2017) describe how the PEST analysis
enables the researcher and the stakeholders within an organization to understand external factors that will
affect the organization. While these factors are absolutely not controllable, the goal is to develop an
understanding and to make changes within the organization to minimize the negative impact of these external
changes.
Beyond the external factors that are associated with the PEST analysis, there are several other
considerations when analyzing the external environment. Industry health and competitive pressures will also
impact the overall operation of the business. These will be discussed in greater detail in subsequent units. In
developing an understanding of the external and internal environments of an organization, the execution of a
strategic marketing research plan is key. The world changes at an incredibly fast pace, which supports the
need for a continuous research plan. A firm’s marketing information system allows a company to track
changes and modify product or service offerings, distribution plans, pricing strategies, or even the methods
used to communicate the benefits of the product or service to the target market (promotion).
Review the Identifying Populations Interactive Activity for more information (alternative format for Identifying
Populations Interactive Activity).
MKT 5301, Advanced Marketing 3
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
According to the American Marketing Association (2017), the definition of marketing research is below:
The function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information—
information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and
evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing
as a process. Marketing research specifies the information required to address these issues, designs
the method for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes
the results, and communicates the findings and their implications. (para. 3)
At its very basic form, the marketing research process can be viewed through a series of steps as described
below.
As the researcher moves through these steps, the methods to gather the research must be determined. The
first decision is whether to conduct a focus group, a survey, or behavioral research. Focus group research
suggests that the researcher gathers eight to 10 carefully selected individuals with the designated purpose of
acquiring their opinions on a topic through a discussion forum. Survey research offers the respondents with a
series of questions, either in paper form or electronically. These responses are then tabulated, and
conclusions are drawn. Behavioral research draws conclusions based upon the buying behaviors of
consumers. This research is typically gathered based upon observations or the accumulation of buying
records, such as cash register records. A survey is one of the most widely used research methods today
because this is one of the most cost-effective methods of gathering large amounts of data. Survey types
include telephone interviews; U.S. mail surveys; email surveys; or popular online survey methods, such as
Survey Monkey. Researchers need to understand that consumers today are time poor, and they really have
little time to respond to questionnaires. With that in mind, the survey needs to be organized to allow
respondents to finish the survey quickly. As one might imagine, gathering data from consumers is not always
an easy task.
Through these steps, the market researcher attempts to gather research, perform the statistical analysis, and
solve the problem within the organization. The data is stored in a database, which has expanded to include
significant quantities of data. With today’s technology, we can store vast amounts of data and review the data
cumulatively, which allows marketers to understand the relevance between different areas of the data. This
collection of data is considered to be incredibly valuable by market researchers. The final step in the process
is for the researcher to be able to communicate the research results. This must be done at the appropriate
levels within the organization and, in many cases, to multiple stakeholders. A recent challenge for marketers
MKT 5301, Advanced Marketing 4
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
is the use of ad blockers by consumers to avoid advertisers. Companies are using embedded messages, viral
events, and games, which all use data and analytics to create content more appealing to the consumer.
Business marketing strategists are becoming proactive in the use of market research that can impact change
and increase the overall effectiveness of a company’s marketing and advertising campaigns.
Coming Up
Throughout this course, you will be compiling a digital marketing brief for a fictional company. This will be a
comprehensive digital marketing brief that you will compile in Units IV, VI, and VIII. While this is a cumulative
brief, each part should be submitted separately, as described in the assignment instructions.
References
American Marketing Association. (2017). Definition of marketing research. https://www.ama.org/the-definition-
of-marketing
Franzini, B., & Sadeghian, K. (2017). How will a new administration impact my business? Policy, data and
business intelligence. Business Intelligence Journal, 22(3), 44–51.
https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direc
t=true&db=bsu&AN=125246948&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Kotler, P., Keller, K. L., & Chernev, A. (2022). Marketing management (16th ed.). Pearson.
https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9780135887035