C Marketing

What is market research?
Is a tool that helps organisations to find out their customer needs.
It gathers together the likes and dislikes of customers so that the organisation can act on the information and improve its products and services.
It provides up to date information for the organisation.

Why is market research important to the organisation
It enables the organisation to find out the following information:
Who are the typical customers
what products and services do customers require
Why they will visit one organisation over their competitors
How can products and services be improved.
How can sales / visitor numbers be improved for the organisation as a result of suggestions made during market research.
How much customers are prepared to pay
How often are customers prepared to buy / visit
What sort of image will promote the products and services
What new products and services should be developed.

Market research involves forecasting the type of products and services that people require.
Market research helps with product developing.
Market research takes the guess work out of decision making

What are the different types of market research?
Primary Research = field research
Involves collecting and analysing information at first hand using face to face interviews and surveys.
Data is original and up to date
can be expensive to conduct
takes time to collect


Secondary research
Involves using material that has already been published such as newspaper articles, published company accounts, financial records.

There is a wide range of data available
Data is free
Soon becomes out of date
May not be relevant to research

How Does Alton Towers Know What Guests Want From Their Day Out?

Alton Towers conducts extensive research to ensure guests experience a magical day out. Questionnaires are left on car windscreens and in bedrooms at the Alton Towers hotels. The results are collated and fed back on a monthly basis. This is Customer Satisfaction Research, More specific questionnaires are also produced for special events to get instant feedback, this is known as Real Time Research.

What does Alton Towers do with this information?

Once results have been collected and processed they are distributed to appropriate departments who look at ways in which all aspects of Alton Towers can be improved.

What improvements have come out of customer research?

A good example is the introduction of branded food partners McDonalds, KFC and PizzaHut that came about as a direct result of the research in 1997

Why does Alton Towers hold special events?

Througout the season, Alton Towers holds a number of special events aimed at increasing the dwell time and therefore spend of guests. Previous special events have included summer entertainment, Halloween Spooktaculars and the UK's largest firework and laser spectacular. Alton Towers has also played host to a number of pop concerts including Tina Turner, Wet Wet Wet, M People and Bryan Adams.

Who organises the special events?

Alton Towers has its own Special Events departments. Their role involves all aspects of event management from publicising the events to the day to day running of the event itself. They are also responsible for organising company fun days, corporate hospitality, residential conferences and product launches.