Website Functionality and E-marketing Research

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RESPONSE:

1. Prior to developing a website you will need to determine what functionality your customers would like. Determine the type of market research you will perform to elicit this information from your customer-base. So, I need to determine types of Market research.

I located two sources to consider:

a. Customer buying behavior http://www.knowthis.com/tutorials/marketing/consumer_buying_behavior.htm

b. Conducting Research http://www.tutor2u.net/business/marketing/research_conducting.asp

I can see what you mean though. Although I did an extensive "on-line search" using variations of words in your questions as queries, I did not run across any information specific to an example like yours. However, the information I did locate could easily be adapted to your research needs, which I presented below. I provided a fair amount of material for you to consider, so please just keep what fits. The first source refers to two types of marketing research - ad hoc and continuous marketing types, whereas the second source referred to primary and quantitative research methods. We also look at what is referred to as customer-focused marketing strategies. You might have to tweak some of the methods to fit with your specific research needs. I pointed out some considerations throughout the response.

1. Prior to developing a website you will need to determine what functionality your customers would like. Determine the type of market research you will perform to elicit this information from your customer-base.

Good marketers are constantly gathering information about their customers in an effort to better serve them and, most importantly, to retain them as loyal customers. Although customer focused, however, our main purpose is to gather information from our potential customers about what functions they would prefer on the website. The main distinction between marketing research is whether it is continuous or ad hoc. Your question clearly requires an ad hoc (i.e., survey a sample of your customers, etc.), but let's look at both to get a clear understanding of both.

Ad Hoc

-Focus is on a specific marketing problem, such as to illicit information from your customer-base about preferences and expectations of functions of website design, from one sample of respondents (i.e., your customer base).

Good examples of ad hoc studies including your example being first:

1. Website function survey (what functions do the sample of customers prefer and expect on a ...