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| window cleaning supplies - The insights generated by a focus group are often explored further through quantitative research, which provides reliable, hard statistics. This type of research uses closed-ended questions, enabling the researcher to determine the exact percentage of people who answered yes or no to a question or who selected answer a, b, c, or d on a questionnaire. One of the most common quantitative research techniques is the survey in which researchers sample the opinions of a large group of people. If the sample group is large enough and is representative of a particular group, such as executives who use cell phones, statisticians consider the findings statistically valid, which means that if all consumers in that particular category could be surveyed, the findings would still be the same. This means that quantitative findings are conclusive in a way that qualitative findings cannot be. Of all the forces affecting modern marketing, perhaps none is more important than globalization. Since the 1980s, technological advances such as global telephone and computer networks have reduced geographic and even cultural distance. As a result, companies can now buy supplies and produce and sell goods in countries far from their home offices. Products conceived in one country are now being manufactured and then sold in many others. For example, Sony (Japan), Nestlé (Switzerland), Bic (France), and Volkswagen (Germany) have become household words | around the world. Although being able to market goods far from home presents corporations with many new opportunities, it also means they face new competition. Local companies that never even considered international competition now find foreign competitors stocked on shelves right alongside their own products. Some economists argue that local companies should be protected from such competition through legislation that regulates the flow of goods through trade barriers and other measures. Others oppose such regulation, arguing that it only raises prices for consumers. See also Free Trade. Globalization, however, is only one force changing the way companies market their products or services. Another involves changes in the very interests and desires of consumers themselves. Consumers today are more sophisticated than those of past generations. They attend school for a much longer period of time; they are exposed to newspapers, magazines, motion pictures, radio, television, and travel; and they have much greater interaction with other people. Their demands are more exacting, and their taste changes more volatile. Markets tend to be segmented as each group calls for products suited to its particular tastes. Positioning the product that is, determining the exact segment of the population that is likely to buy a product, and then developing a marketing campaign to enhance the product's image to fit that particular segment requires great care and planning. |
