Utilicorp's fame delivers its first marketing application
What is marketing research?
UED's Director of Market Research was the internal client for this project. In order to
better serve the mapping and analysis needs of this group, it was helpful to understand the
group's overall mission. The American Marketing Association, in an article from "AMA
News" provides this concise statement:
"Marketing research is the function which links the consumer, customer, and public to
the marketer through information used to:
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identify and define marketing opportunities and problems;
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generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions;
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monitor marketing performance;
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improve understanding of marketing as a process.
Marketing research also
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specifies the information required to address these issues;
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designs the method for collecting information;
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manages and implements the data collection process;
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analyzes the results;
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communicates the findings and their implications."
Market research studies often successfully combine primary and secondary research.
Primary research includes the collection of primary data through direct mail, personal or
telephone interviews with industry experts, customers, distributors or competitors
depending on needs. The secondary research process may include: a search of computer
databases; a search of secondary information sources not available on database.
At the conclusion of all research processes is the dissemination of information including:
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a complete analysis of all information collected;
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clear, concise conclusions and recommendations.
A comprehensive research program for a division, a market or a product line:
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guides the design and implementation of individual projects;
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assures that project research aids in the solution of immediate marketing
problems;
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contributes to the systematic building of a body of intelligence that
supports the long term marketing strategy of that unit.
Research can be anything from a simple informational request to longitudinal or complex
customer studies. UED periodically needs all types of information and performs all types
of research. Some of the types of questions that are researched include: What is the size
of the potential market for "X" product? What are the trends in the market? Will the
market support new product "X"? Who are the potential customers for this product?
Does the proposed product satisfy a potential customer's needs? Who are the
competitors? Should we develop/launch this product? What are the factors that drove
the success or non-success of a program/product?
Improving market research processes with spatial analysis
Examination of UED's traditional market research analysis revealed a number of
cumbersome or limiting procedures. Prior to the development of enterprise-wide
mapping capabilities, collecting information for a study was a complex gathering task.
Field office personnel and a few centralized drafting pools maintained facilities records.
This information was customarily distributed through annual map book updates and by
custom mapping projects for an area. Corporate marketing staff would make direct
contact with local field personnel to determine the current status of the distribution
system for each area of concern. Information was often transferred by sketching on the
back of an envelope.
The geocoding process, producing latitude and longitude points from addressing
information, was being outsourced. This required careful formatting of customer
information extracts, sending an extract, waiting for results, and receiving the product of
an unexplored black box process. If there were lots of successful matches it was good
fortune; if there were lots of misses it was a mystery. Additionally, creation of a mailing
list certified for bulk mailing with associated phone numbers was being outsourced.
With the arrival of spatial analysis capabilities through FAME, marketing became
interested in acquiring more geographically specific demographic information, preferably
at the household level. Information about housing stock (age and value of residential
housing) was particularly difficult and costly to obtain.
We evaluated marketing needs related to FAME capabilities and produced some initial
solutions. Facility information for all UtiliCorp service areas would be available as real
time geographic and database information through the enterprise-wide rollout of FAME.
Facilities designers enter their designs directly into FAME, with subsequent posting to
as-built status. Everyone in the enterprise could have immediate, detailed real-time
information of facilities at any location. Further, it was possible to compose on-the-fly
queries of the facilities information.
We determined that it would be preferable to bring geocoding capabilities into FAME in
order to streamline and better understand the elements of this process. We evaluated
various geocoding tools for use in FAME and ended up using a very easily implemented
stand alone tool. This geocoder provides current addressing information for the entire
United States, has a good interactive interface for attempting to resolve misses, and
provides straightforward latitude, longitude and census boundary information for import
into FAME. Conversely, our initial evaluation determined that mailing address and
telephone information would best be left as an outsourced service.
The search for household level demographic information remained challenging. We
made a breakthrough in one service area where we have a geographic data sharing
agreement with the city. We were able to obtain the county assessor database which
shows current housing values as well as address information for each plat.
