Marketing Proposal for Film 4 You DVD Rental Store - Research Paper Example

? Marketing Research Proposal for Film 4 You DVD Rental Store Marketing Research Proposal: Introduction Films 4 You Company limited is a regional company with headquarters in New York. Established in the year 1999 with strong market presence in provision of DVD rental services, Films 4 You Company Limited has a track record of distributing 500 DVD consumer rental per day representing a 5% share in the DVD rental business in New York economy. DVD rentals are specifically are a cherished service for all age groups especially for high school students, college students, teenagers, young adults and parents who choose the DVD rental services for entertainment purposes. Major competitors in the DVD rental business include upcoming rental stores, online rental providers and media houses that broadcast entertainment DVDs. Over the last three years, Films 4 You Ltd has experienced downward revenue from its business, perhaps reasons that can be hypothetically attributed to rapid surge of online rental provisions or inability of the company to meet the dynamic and changing consumers buying behaviors when it comes to DVD rental. Similar pilot market studies have ranked online stores and inadequacy to meeting customer’s needs as to major factors that can be attributed to the decline in the sales revenue of the organization. (Merrilees, 2001) Suggests that the introduction of internet has by far means changed the way businesses are conducted globally. Internet has played a significant role in the value chain from manufacturing, distribution and retail outlets. Merrilees further adds that the main sector affected by internet is perhaps the marketing aspect. Online marketing according to this research studies is composed of the basic P’s marketing just as in convectional marketing, (price, product, people and place) and perhaps the online marketing could poses competitive advantage since it adequately enhances and utilizes these four components in one place. (Ducoffe, 1996) On the other hand, Film 4 You suggests that another contributing factor for the sales decline would be as a result of a shift in the consumer’s buying behavior. In pure competitive markets consumers vary in age, buying behavior, income, education, taste and many factors that play to inform consumer’s preferences. When classified, buyer buying behaviors are generally influenced by four major factors including; cultural, personal, psychological and social factors. This paper presents background analysis of the perceived factors that affect Film 4 You with their respective background study, proposed objectives of the study, statement of the problem, scope and limitation of the study, methodologies used and design of the research study and significance of the study. This paper analyses on consumer behavior and emergence of online marketing as important due to the immediate applicability in the global business economy. In addition, this research is of the specific opinion to evaluate which one the highlighted factors would be responsible for such observed business poor performance. Background information Online Marketing Marketing studies by (Merrilees, 2001)suggests that internet has revolutionized how organizations conduct their business worldwide. Its advent has seen a new shift in marketing paradigm around on improving the value chain along manufacturing and retail to end users creating a new pattern of retail distribution channel. (Cobanoglu, Ekinci, & Park, 2003) Ideally online marketing has seen such an increase and usage among consumers as a result of strong working trust among parties involved, building strong and working relationships and recognizing the fact that the customers work to define their rules of engagement. To this far, marketing has received so much benefit from internet. While using the basic convectional principles of marketing, the system has become much more preferred due to its effectiveness to enhance and correlate the P’s of marketing in much more efficient manner. (Rhee & Riggins, 1999) (Donthu & Garcia, 1999)postulates that consumer’s level of involvement in technology affects to a large percentage the purchasing behavior as it bridges the gap between the marketing channel and perceived quality of an item, subsequently, the degree of a consumer’s involvement becomes the most critical factor as it determines and shapes the model of decision making process and consumer’s preference to purchasing (Engel, Blackwell, & Miniard, 1995)which is shaped by factors such as customer’s direct personal involvement with the product, information acquired and gathered from others and the level of an individual’s exposure to mass media. (Cobanoglu, Ekinci, & Park, 2003) Primarily this study will focus on studying the relationship and extent of online DVD retailers in affecting the price mechanisms and sales performance of Film 4 You Ltd. It would be very vital that the research establish an in depth relationship between this factor on the sales of Film 4 You as many consumers are consumers are getting knowledgeable in relation to understanding the relationship between customer purchase and internet services. Moreover, the study will seek to determine the number of online DVD stores, what are the needs of consumers when it comes to online marketing and the advantages and disadvantages of online purchase. Meeting Consumers expectation Following earlier pilot studies, the company had postulated that perhaps one the factors why the sales margins could be falling could be attributed to changes in the normal consumers’ consumption patterns strongly because the company did not meet the anticipated customer’s expectations. When organization do not meet the specific expectations of customers there tends to reverse or changed consumer’s purchasing decisions in finding best alternative for the product or service offered or turn to competitors who are able to offer the service efficiently and effectively while addressing the unique customer’s interests in the product. During the process of marketing, organizations always work hard to understand their customer’s perceptions of their intended marketing activities, how customers respond to their product, market prices, and effects of competition. Failing to meet consumer’s expectations largely result to a shift in the consumer’s buying behavior. These factors that influence the buying patterns of consumers include; social factors, psychological factors, personal reasons of cultural orientations. Several marketing studies allude that culture is the most important factor that affect leads to a change in the buying patterns of consumers. Failure to take into consideration a customer’s cultural needs would imply that the organization is not addressing consumer’s expectations and result in ineffective marketing. Social factors include issues such as family, social roles and status. The significance of group influence in marketing varies with the particular products and their brands. Its effect tends to be stronger when the product or service is accessible to persons that the customer identifies with. Family as the most single important social organization that influence marketing has received a lot of marketing studies. Within the family, marketing organizations have been particularly interested in roles and particular influences of family members towards the purchasing of a particular brand of product. (Engel, Blackwell, & Miniard, 1995) Interest in this study would be examining how well the company meets the customer’s expectations and the relationship between consumers’ behavior and the company performance. In this study, particular question of interest would be; what are the customers’ expectations when it comes to DVD renting? What influences customers purchasing decisions to rent a DVD? What other factors influence customer buying decisions? What trends are observed in the customers purchasing decisions? Statement of the problem The entire study of this paper seeks to provide solutions to marketing questions such as; what are the needs of consumers in online marketing? What factors influence customer buying decisions? What are the trends observed in changing consumer behaviors? What are the consumers’ perceptions to online marketing? The outcome of this study will be greater extent limited to reviewed literature materials, data collected from questionnaires, and phone call interviews that are to be conducted by the researcher drawn from the phone call records maintained by the company. For this study, both primary and secondary sources of data will be utilized. Primary research will be used using interview sessions with the potential customers using questionnaires in determining consumer perceptions with DVD rental services, and the marketing effect utilizing online DVD stores as an alternative to DVD rental services. The researcher also intends to conduct interviews with company decision makers and managers in elucidating the extent of online marketing and changes in consumer purchasing patterns to the performance of the company. In this respect, results from the questionnaire study will be objectively used to collect quantitative data and oral interviews also used to ascertain qualitative analysis into the collected data. For this particular research design, the research will gather data review published materials and articles from business marketing journals and make both qualitative and quantitative analysis collected at documentary and verbal level. At the end of this study, the researcher will provide summarized information; make conclusions and recommendations on marketing implications for the company. Research Objectives The primary objectives of this research raise critical points on the research topic. It asks how online DVD stores affect the performance of the Film 4 You DVD rental stores through utilization of internet as marketing alternatives. Furthermore, it critically questions the consumer changes in buying habit, the factors that influence this marketing shift and general consumers’ behaviors. Further the research objectives are explained into details as follows; To examine how online DVD stores affect the performance of Films 4 You Ltd. This objective seeks to explore the level of effect of online rental business on performance of the company. It will do this by conducting a literature review of published marketing articles and journals to determine among other things; the number of online DVD stores, the organization of online marketing, the efficiency and efficacy of such online stores, the strengths and weaknesses of such business, the potentials and opportunities in online marketing as an alternative to conventional marketing practices and the market percentage served with the consumer figures that they bargain and correlate these figures with existing data on market organization produced by the company. To determine whether the organization’s marketing organization meets consumer expectations. This objective deviates from the former competitor analysis model and instead focuses on the organizational strengths and weaknesses with respect to organizing marketing activities for their products. In further examines the efficacy of such conventional marketing model. To fully justify this objective, the research asks questions such as consumer behavior, establishing the number of consumers that have expressed purchasing interests in the organization’s products, the number percentage sales revenues within a specific five year period, establish consumer trend in the specific products purchased and ascertain reasons for the observed trends. Additionally this objective will also seek to determine how marketing programs are organized within the organization. Significant/Justification of the study The study offers new marketing thoughts into the complex understanding of marketing. What makes this study unique and significant is because it takes into consideration quite a task into deductive understanding of the customer behavior and factors that drive consumer purchase; this will so achieved in analyzing two hypothetical factors that result to poor performance of the company and conclusive decision made on which factor is a contributing factor. Research scope and limitations This study will particularly focus on selected customers of the organization and conducting interviews on them. This will also be achieved through analyzing the online rental websites and looking into the trend of consumer purchases from these sites. The study will also incorporate analytical studies to determine the buying patterns of DVDs from Film 4 You Ltd and their preferences and buying attitudes. Research Design In an attempt to construct the research design, the researcher is being guided by several aspects of good research design s postulated by (Martin, 2007)The parameters that the suggested design in this study fulfils include but not limited to; reflecting a strong relationship on the theories under investigation, reflecting on the situational settings of the investigation, it ensures ease of implementation where potential problems are to be measured, adherence to research objectives, it would also ensure duplication of the results obtained in the research, and it should also put into consideration costs, and eliminate potentials of threat into validity of the results. Quantitative Research The research proposes to conduct a telephone study using questionnaire to customers’ telephone contacts. This methodology is so chosen as a cost effective method of contacting the research respondents. It is the best view of this research that a personal one on one respondent interview would not be cost effective and feasible and also because a telephone interview gives an opportunity for accurate selection of people and also quite fast process, additionally it offers respondents comfort of responding to the research questions with utmost confidentiality and confidence besides giving this particular research some sort of assurance in achieving the anticipated objectives. a) Purpose This phase of the research seeks to establish and quantify the number of households or that use DVD rental services or have a history of engaging such services. It will also provide a comparable percentage of the current customers and the ones that had already left buying from the company. By establishing this consumer relationship, the consumer will be able to determine the number of people who purchase the DVD rental services, their reasons for such a purchase, their consumption characteristics and the level and frequent of purchase. b) Population and sampling The research will conduct 200 interviews to consumer households of different nature and sizes. This is intended to spread response and identification of observed differences. The research will set out interlocking sampling quota as provided below; Household name Gender Total population sample Male Female 1 35 15 50 2 25 25 50 3 20 30 50 5> 25 25 50 Total 105 95 200 The questionnaire is intended to probe the following issues; The consumer purchasing pattern The type of DVD rentals purchased The reasons for DVD rentals The frequency of the purchase The approximate income proportion spent on DVD rental If the customers are aware of existing alternatives to the DVD rental Where appropriate the research questions will be pre-coded, but due to costing reasons, the research adopts open-ended questions, interview session of 10minutes. In case of open ended questions, code frames will be adequately prepared. Data analysis from this research study will be done inform of computer tabulations, using frequency distributions. Qualitative Research Given the nature of this study, considerable efforts will be made to provide qualitative information to capture aspects of some of the stated research objectives. Focused will be used in analyzing secondary sources of data including journals, articles and websites of online rental businesses to ascertain the extent of the consumer loyalty and the anticipated market share. With special emphasis this phase of research will probe issues such as; What is the number of online DVD rental stores What type of services to the online stores offer How do they organize their marketing programs What is the efficiency and efficacy of such program in operational costs and projected revenues What is the percentage of customers they command What is the general customer’s perception to online marketing as an alternative to conventional marketing What are some of the weaknesses and strengths that exist in such an arrangement What is their pricing strategy? What reasons influence online marketing and their success factors Population and research sampling The research will randomly sample four online DVD rental stores for analytical studies in an attempt to come up with suggested solutions to the alluded research questions. The study therefore will classify the online companies as below; Category Class A Class B Class B Class D Profile Well established online store Mid level online store Upcoming online store Starters and amateurs Reporting expectations Using the benchmark of the qualitative study, interim presentation documentary will be prepared and submitted to the company management. Management will then at this level decide on the next stage of the research. Upon completion detailed presentations in seminars and workshops will be organized to discuss the contents of the research with the company staff capturing all findings of the study with conclusions. This will then be followed by preparing three copies of the report that captures all the issues raised during the study. Ethical Considerations During this research, numerous ethical concerns will be taken care of including; the research material presented will ensure that none of the participants suffer or feel discriminated against as a result of the research, the identities of the participants will not disclosed at any level. Equally, information given by the respondents will be treated with great privacy, anonymity and confidentiality. No part of any information got from the participants will be used for any other purpose except for the sole reason that they will be sought. Research timing and financial projections The table below is an interim schedule of the research activities during the exercise. Equally the table provides financial estimates that will be required for successful research study, it should be noted however that these are financial estimates and are subjected to change as unforeseen issues will arise during this research. Period (week) Period 1-6 Qualitative research 7-8 Questionnaire development 9-10 Pilot testing (n=20) 11-12 Quantitative project phase 13-14 Data coding and interpretation 15 Analysis 16-18 Presentation and report preparation Financial projections Project phase Activity Estimate ($) Preliminary survey and sampling 10hour senior staff for analysis $800 to access over 50 journals and periodicals $2500 Detail qualitative study Analysis of 4 online stores $2500 Quantitative research 200 participants $8000 Total estimate $14,000 Conclusion This research is conducted with a view of offering management decision making tool to ascertain the specific factor between two hypothetical factors; online stores or changes in consumer attitude affects the company performance. Results of this study are therefore intended for organizational consumption and would recommend appropriate marketing best adopted. References Cobanoglu, C., Ekinci, Y., & Park, J. (2003). 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