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面对当前全球经济放缓、竞争日益激烈的形势，企业动员消费者、促使消费者购买产品至关重要。一般来说，有效调动消费者是一项复杂的工作，涉及到企业管理、消费者对企业的印象和看法、企业与消费者关系的维护等问题。因此，调动消费者，企业必须在他们的管理工作做好，营销和其他方面，以及完成这些工作是企业市场研究，市场研究可以帮助企业了解市场环境的状况，也有助于企业了解市场环境的变化和预期的市场环境未来的发展制定正确的管理策略，为企业营销提供依据。可以说，市场研究在调动消费者的过程中起到了多重要的角色，没有做好市场调研的企业是不可能有效地调动消费者。本文旨在探讨目前市场研究在消费者动员过程中所扮演的角色，以及未来市场研究在动员消费者过程中应扮演何种角色。本文分为四个部分，首先分析了当前市场调研的定义及其特点，然后论述了当前企业在动员消费者过程中所扮演的角色。其次是当前市场调研在动员消费者方面存在的不足，最后提出了未来市场研究在企业动员消费者过程中应发挥哪些作用。
1.0 Introduction 简介
In the face of the current global economic slowdown, increasingly fierce competition, it is very important for enterprises to mobilize consumers and cause consumers to purchase their products (Payne, 2008). Generally speaking, effectively mobilizing consumers is complex for enterprises, it involves corporate management, consumers’ impression and view on enterprises, the maintenance of the relationship between enterprises and consumers, and so on (Palmer, 2004). Therefore, to mobilize consumers, enterprises must do a good job in their management, marketing and other aspects, and to complete these work is inseparable to enterprises’ market research, market research helps enterprises to understand the status of the market environment, it also helps enterprises to understand the changes in the market environment and to anticipate the future development of the market environment to provide the basis for developing correct management and marketing strategies for enterprises (Armstrong, 2001). It can be said that market research plays a multiple and important role in the process of mobilizing consumers, enterprises failing to do market research well are not likely to effectively mobilize consumers (Kearney, 2012). This essay aims to discuss what roles that the current market research plays in the process of mobilizing consumers, and what roles that future market research should play in the process of mobilizing consumers. This essay is divided into four parts, it first analyzes the current definition of market research and its characteristics, and then it discusses what roles that the current enterprises play in the process of mobilizing consumers. Followed by the shortcomings of the current market research in mobilizing consumers, and finally, the author recommend on what roles that the future market research should also play in the process of mobilizing consumers in the enterprises.
2.0 Main body 正文主体
2.1 Market research
Market research refers to the use of scientific methods to purposefully, systematically collect, record, organize the relevant marketing information and data, through analyzing market situation, to understand the market status and development trends to provide objective, correct information for market forecasting and marketing decisions (Yang et al., 2017). There are many contents in market research, such as research on market environment, including research on policy environment, economic environment, social and cultural environment; research on basic situation of market, mainly including market norms, the overall demand, market trends, market share in certain industry; research on sales possibility, including amount of existing and potential users and demand, the trend of changes in market demand, the market share of the competitor's products in the market, the possibility of expanding sales and the specific ways, etc .; research can also be carried out on consumers and consumer demand, enterprises’ products, product prices, the impact of social and natural factors on sales, sales channels (Evert et al., 2016; Shi, 2015; Pun and Heese, 2015). The real significance of market research is to enable managers to analyze the data of market research to clarify the direction of enterprise development, so as to determine the competitive advantage of enterprises and to develop a reasonable and scientific management, development, investment, marketing and other marketing decision-making (Shi, 2015; Yang et al., 2017).
Market research is defined as the process to conduct research to achieve the goal of market information, including the means of crystallizing information needed for corresponding problems, methods of information collection, management and implementation of data collection process and analysis of research results to acquire conclusions and determine its meaning, etc (Pun and Heese, 2015; Evert et al., 2016). In classification, it includes quantitative research, qualitative research, retail research, media and advertising research, business research, public opinion surveys, and desktop research, etc (Yang et al., 2017).
The purpose of market research is to identify, define market opportunities and potential problems, so as to develop, optimize marketing mix and evaluate its effectiveness (Shi, 2015). Therefore, market research is not only research on buyers’ and users’ psychology and behavior, but also research on all stages of marketing activity, namely, it collects, records, sorts and analyzes data and information of all the business activities of producers and consumers, in order to understand the real and the potential markets of products, its research scope includes all products and services (Shi, 2015; Kearney, 2012).
2.2 Role of market research
2.2.1 Understand the current situation of market environment
In the 20th century, economy of the developed countries in the world was recovered from the strike of the second world war and the economy had entered a rapid development of nearly 20 years, consumers’ demand for all kinds of goods were increased significantly, which was first because the economic development raised the people’s incomes, and the long suppressed personal needs by the war had been released. Second, the development of the global trade has also expanded the external market demand of the countries. Some researchers carried out market research to find that consumer demand was strong and single during this period of time, there was a shortage of quantity, a shortage of quality and a shortage of structure in terms of corporate production and market demand, the shortage of quantity was the most significant, thereby forming a typical seller's market competition environment. Through market research, scholars commented that in such a market environment, the direction of the mobilization of the consumers by the companies was mainly considering how to use the minimal cost, the cheapest price to introduce the products to the market. According to the special market environment characteristics and the realistic requirement of the enterprises to reduce costs and improve marketing performance, at that time, many related scholars have done a lot of market research and put forward valuable marketing theory. N. H. Borden (1953) pioneered the concept of marketing strategy mix, he thought that marketing is corporate marketing personnel’s integrated use of various kinds of controllable factors to carry out marketing activities and finally achieve their marketing activities. Jerome McCarthy (1960) was through market research on marketing strategy planning and marketing activities of enterprises, retailers, wholesalers to point out that from the perspective of corporate management and operation, to mobilize consumers mainly comes from the four aspects of factors, including product, price, place, and promotion. This is the famous 4P theory of marketing. Jerome McCarthy (1960) figured that an enterprise in the process of marketing should focus on the four aspects, first, products should have unique selling point, second, depending on the product market positioning, it should develop targeted price strategy. Third, it should cultivate and improve the sales network, in order to build the relationship between the enterprise and consumers. Finally, the enterprises can promote the growth of sales by offering incentives. 4P theory was put forward for providing a very valuable decision-making thought for enterprises about how to develop marketing strategies to mobilize consumers under the condition of a shortage market economy, it allows an enterprise’s decision makers to quickly and effectively find the decisive factors influencing the enterprise marketing performance in complicated market conditions, so as to develop a targeted marketing mix strategy. Today, although the market environment has changed dramatically, enterprises also can't completely ignore the value of the 4P theory. In addition, Philip Kotler (2008), as well as other researchers referred to Jerome McCarthy’s theory to bring forward 6P and 7P, 10P theory, which constantly improved the 4P theory system. In short, market research enables enterprises to acquire a clear understanding of macroeconomic trends, commodity supply and demand relations, competitive environment to help enterprises to improve their management. However, as the market environment was changed from the original shortage economy at that time to surplus economy, limitations of the existing 4P theory were revealed constantly, on the basis of a large number of market research, some new marketing management theory was raised.#p#分页标题#e#
2.2.2 Discover the dynamic change of market environment
Since the 1970s, market research report showed that economy of western countries had developed for more than 20 years, the social material wealth of the countries was rich, so the people's life was released from scarcity, they began to pay more attention to personality and differentiation, considering consumption, consumers liked products which could reflect their personality (Yang et al., 2017). According to relevant market research report, the 4P marketing strategy of pursuing unified specifications and efficiency while ignoring consumer demand became less effective for enterprises to improve the income (Kearney, 2012). In order to better deal with the challenges in the new market environment, economists and enterprise management began to implement continuously market research, during 1970s-1990s, new marketing theories appeared (Evert et al., 2016). Among the theories, 4C marketing theory was the most representative and it was proposed by Robert F. Lauterborn in the 1990s. The 4C theory figures, corporate marketing should be based on consumers demand, compared with 4P marketing theory, he established the four basic elements of enterprise marketing mix: consumer, cost, convenience and communication. Lauterborn (1990) was through market research on marketing and corporate communications of IBM, the United States Telephone and Telegraph Company, Hewlett-Packard, Exxon Mobil, Texas Instruments and many other companies to find that marketing should first study consumer appetites and desires, and then according to the market demand to develop product strategy, and it should not unilaterally first consider what products that an enterprise can produce; companies should pay more attention to the costs that consumers are willing to pay for to meet their needs, rather than determining the price their products; in terms of marketing place construction, enterprises should first enable consumers to understand and purchase products conveniently, rather than emphasize how to reduce costs and improve corporate efficiency; the interaction and two-way communication between enterprises and consumers are important, and the one-way promotion and activity communication between enterprises and consumers in the past go against improving customer satisfaction. Marketing theory transformation from 4P to 4C actually was actual change of market environment from a seller’s market to a buyer's market, it also revealed that consumers are more and more important in an enterprise’s marketing activities (Payne, 2008). 4C theory helps enterprises to value consumer-orientation, thus enterprises will understand how to improve customer satisfaction. To sum up, 4C marketing theory reflects the basic elements of enterprise marketing mix under the condition of the surplus market economy, accurate market research helps enterprises to understand the change of the market economy environment and new topics brought by this change to enterprise competition, more importantly, market research provides valuable ideas and methods for the enterprises to cope with these new challenges.
2.2.3 Provide a basis for enterprises to develop long-term management and marketing strategies
In the late 1990s, researchers studied through market research to find that with the advent of the globalization and information age, resources were allocated more efficiently and rationally in the global scope, making the social material production efficiency greatly improved, social wealth and products were extremely rich, consumers faced more diversified choices, the competition that enterprises faced was unprecedented (Kearney, 2012; Shi, 2015). After conducting market research on consumer behavior in the market, scholars pointed out that 4C marketing theory emphasizes the importance of customers to corporate marketing, but the reality is that customer demand becomes more diversified and personalized, and consumers face many choices, consumer loyalty to enterprise products is also declining (Evert et al., 2016; Yang et al.., 2017). In this context, deficiencies of 4C marketing theory have been increasingly recognized by academics and entrepreneurs (Pun and Heese, 2015; Shi, 2015). In order to solve the conflict between corporate cost and consumers’ individual needs to maintain and continuously improve consumer loyalty, people began to realize the importance of building a long-term interaction between consumers and enterprises in order to meet the needs of consumers’ personalized demand at the same time to achieve the maximization of corporate interests. In 2001, Don Schultz proposed the 4R marketing theory. He was through the market research on the old economy, the new economy, the post-economic era marketing model to reveal the deep causes of failure, disintegration of the 4P marketing and the traditional marketing model to demonstrate the inevitability of changing into 4R marketing of the future marketing model (Schultz, 2001). He identified the basic elements of marketing mix as four aspects: relativity, reaction, relation and retribution (Schultz, 2001). First, about relativity, Don Schultz (2001) argued that the establishment and development of long-term interaction between enterprises and consumers is the core and most important content of corporate marketing. Second, Don Schultz (2001) believed that companies should learn to listen patiently to each consumer's expectations to discover and predict the potential needs of consumers, and to establish rapid response mechanisms to make rapid and effective reaction to market changes. Third, Don Schultz (2001) figured that the relation between enterprises and consumers should be changed from achieving sales to enterprises’ assuming responsibility and commitment to consumers, so as to encourage consumers to buy and improve consumer loyalty again. Finally, in terms of retribution, Don Schultz (2001) thought that in order to meet the needs of consumers, corporate marketing activities should meet their own marketing objectives as well, to achieve the win-win results of both enterprises and consumers is the ultimate goal of corporate marketing strategies. All in all, through market research, scholars and enterprises not only found the issues of mobilizing consumers at the time, but also provided a decision-making basis for the future long-term marketing strategies.
2.4 Limitation of current market research
With the development of the economy, the progress of science and technology, the behavior and hobby of consumers are still changing constantly, enterprises must pay more effort to meet and respond to consumer demand (Shi, 2015; Evert et al., 2016), so market research for mobilizing consumers should be improved accordingly, but the current market research is still flawed in the following three aspects, first, as research on consumers develops, more and more departments of an enterprise need to be involved in the process of investigation, research on consumer demand, so as to meet what consumers need, the departments include product research and development department, strategic decision-making department, financial sector, etc., the current market research in consumer mobilization research is mainly concerned about the marketing department and it is not much involved in other departments. Second, market research on how to mobilize consumers focus more on the research on tangible products, but with the development of the service industry, service industry in today's society is more and more important, consumers consume more and more intangible products, such as service, but the current market research is still slightly inadequate in research on intangible products, for example: service. Finally, as the market competition becomes more and more intense, and the individual characteristics of consumer demand become more and more obvious, the consumer market segment will be more and more fine, in different segment markets, consumers have different performance, which needs enterprises to understand and meet. And the current market research on consumer segments is not enough detail, which is very unfavorable for enterprises to find and meet the consumer demand of valuable segment markets.
2.5 Directions of future market research
Future market research in the mobilization of consumers can be improved from the following three aspects and development. First of all, it should pay attention to the roles of the various departments of enterprises in the process of mobilizing consumers, making use of management theory and perspective to explore how various departments coordinate and cooperate in the process of mobilizing consumers, in order to achieve the greatest degree of mobilization of consumers. Then, there is a big difference between service and regular products, the consumer demand for service has a lot of particularity, the future market research should focus on these differences in order to better mobilize consumers to consume service. Finally, market research should be segmented more to deal with research on different consumer demand in different market segments, while emphasizing the combination of marketing theory and other disciplines of knowledge, including: psychological disciplines, behavioral disciplines, statistics, etc., which is more helpful to carrying out targeted research on consumers of many market segments.
3.0 Conclusion 结论
In the current situation, how to mobilize consumers to allow consumers to focus on, purchase, recommend products of an enterprise is very important for success of the enterprise (Payne, 2008). However, enterprises to mobilize consumers must do a good job in its management, marketing and other aspects, to complete these tasks requires an enterprise to do a good job in market research. Market research in the process of mobilization of consumers plays important, multiple roles, including helping companies to understand the current state of market environment, helping companies to understand the changes in market environment and the future development of market environment in the future, as well as providing the basis for enterprises to develop correct management and marketing strategies. At present, the problems of market research in mobilizing consumers include less research on the importance of enterprise management in the process of consumer mobilization, less research on service product, and less research on consumers of different segment markets. Future market research will be improved from the above three aspects in order to better help enterprises to mobilize consumers.#p#分页标题#e#
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