The Internet as a Device for Market Research

Seminar paper from year 2010 in subject Business economics - Marketing, Corporate Communication, CRM, Market Research, Social Media, grade: 1,3, AKAD University of Applied Sciences Pinneberg, course: Market Research, language: English, abstract: Companies constantly have to make decisions about products and services they offer. In order to create successful products and services, it is necessary to know how consumers can become customers. Therefore it is essential for a company to under- stand who their (potential) customers as well as (potential) competitors are. Accord- ing to Kotler/Keller, it is the job of marketing researchers to produce insight into customer's attitude and buying behavior. Over last years, Internet has been a fast developing technology. Especially services like email or chat-rooms are used in everyday life by millions of people.2 The usage of Internet has spread very fast through nearly whole society. It is estimated that today nearly 67% of U.S. households have access to Internet. Kotler/Keller state that online research [...] was estimated to make up 33 % of all survey-based research in 2006, and Internet-based questionnaires also accounted for nearly one-third of U.S. spending in market research surveys in same year. This raises question whether Internet is a suitable device for market research. This paper will discuss use of Internet for conducting market research on sales markets. First, concept of market research, as well as what is understood by term 'Internet', will be defined. Thereafter it will be discussed whether and how Internet can be of assistance to market research.