Using Marketing Information System To Perfection

By Author: William King
Total Articles: 365
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What is the difference between a good marketer and an average marketer? Probably the most vital one is the ability to anticipate the demands and trends in the targeted market; it is in fact the essence of marketing. Marketing manager, who can foresee coming trends or demands, is a piece of good fortune for the business. Given these forecasts are based on actual information and figures, rather than just gut feelings. The businesses that can smell the blood (anticipating changes) and go for the kill (prepare for the upcoming boom in demand) always manage to get their hands on the biggest share of market.

To help managers foresee the change in market or customer's preferences, you need a sound information system, which is known as marketing information system. Marketing information system collects the relevant data; organize it into something meaningful, make recommendations based on these figures and than stock it up for future use. Any marketing information system that lacks in any of these three departments is nothing but an encumbrance for the business.

Among these three components, the first one is also the most ...
... important one, because the effectiveness of the entire system depends on the availability and correctness of information. There are two types of resources, normally used for collecting data. Primary resources, where the company carries out the research itself, through different means (interviews, observing consumers behavior, etc) and the secondary resources, where research work of some outside party is used (e.g. government or some research specialist firms). All of these resources have their own pros and cons and the people involved in the decision making should choose the source carefully, consistent with the quality of the data required and the cost.

Then comes the organizing part, where this raw data is sorted out and organized into something purposeful. If the information was collected through primary resources, then this task of organizing the information should not be much of a problem, however if secondary resources were used, it may take some time to segregate required bit of information. Even that has been made easy by powerful computers and data stored in electronic forms.

Last part is deriving results and making decisions based on these figures. This is done mostly by the management, but the success of these decisions is based entirely on the figures originated from the marketing information system. As you can see, marketing information system is a basic requisite for the most important decisions; still many businesses continue to operate without a proper MkIS.

William King is the director of Computers Wholesale Suppliers: http://www.wholesalepages.co.uk/ukwholesalers/Computers-9-0.html , Canada Wholesale Suppliers, Distributors, Dropshippers & Manufacturers: http://www.dailytrader.com/canada/ and UAE Dubai Property & Dubai Real Estate Properties Portal http://www.bayut.com/ . He has 18 years of experience in the marketing and trading industries and has been helping retailers, entrepreneurs and startups with their product sourcing, promotion, marketing and supply chain requirements.

Marketing, information, system, effective, data, decision