ustomers in the long term as well as in the short run. This plan has been designed so that the typically-accepted guidelines of a marketing plan, the main elements of which are:
Accurate and predictive marketing research;
Measurement by market and consumer research;
Brand analysis including brand awareness, response rates;
Measure and monitor activity of individuals;
Target customers and promote the products;
Track behavior responses and changes; and
Adjust marketing decisions (Abramo, 1997, 32).
We plan three kinds of market research:
A. Primary, where customers are interviewed and/or surveyed and their responses are tallied. In this category, Mothers will be chosen at random from their E-mail addresses and sent a survey with questions designed to determine a) How Hallmark can better serve their shopping needs, wants and desires; b) What forms of messaging do Mothers want; and c)What types of offers are most likely to prompt a "buy response.
B. Secondary, where general trends, buying habits, market segments and so forth are identified
C. Tertiary, which will make use of the software generically known as "Data Mining" and use that to target key fields and trends from the existing Gold Crown databases.
Data mining software is an offshoot of university-based artificial intelligence research and the most complex and technologically sophisticated of data query tools. Those include ad hoc query and reporting software and multi-dimensional analysis products.
With this level of market research, data mining software lets the software answer vague questions and discover unknowns. For example, the software programs let users ask random questions and find patterns or correlations that hadn't been noticed before. It is the opposite of querying data, where questions and their answers are specific in query and targeted in subject. For example, using a vague query such as "Blue Christmas Orna...