The list is limited only by the marketer’s need to know and his
or her imaginative creativity. Obviously, the length of the ques-
tionnaire will impact the time the respondent is willing to spend
on the exercise. Therefore, need to knowis a critical ingredient.
As a marketer, you must first define what informational goals are
most important to the research and construct the instrument with
those goals in mind.
Many such surveys are tabulated, recorded, reviewed with pas-
sive interest, and then ignored. The scrupulous investigator, how-
ever, matches the queries and responses through “comparative
analysis” to gain insight into emerging markets. For example, the
question “How long have you been in the business?” is key to
identifying an emerging group of buyers. Responses of one, two,
or three years should be compared with subentry 14 to determine
a relationship between this demographic group and the desire to
improve one’s job status. If the match is positive and significant,
the marketing message to promote to this potential constituency is
clear.
On the other hand, let us assume that the vast majority of the
respondents represent long-time attendees and veterans and alarm-
ingly few are newcomers to the playing field. This may well mean
that the event has reached an age nexus that portends an eventual
“passing of the guard,” with no new markets being attracted to re-
plenish the event and the organization itself.
This is a classic marketing challenge. It isnota nightmare for
the marketer. Rather, it is a great opportunity.As the marketer, you
will want to work with program planners to design events that
will attract new participants, and then craft promotional messages
and methods that will enlist the participation of a whole new mar-
ket. And, as the marketer, you may have saved not only the long-
term future of the organization’s events, but also perhaps the fu-
ture of the organization as a viable entity.
Figure 8-6 presents still more questions the marketing execu-
tive needs to answer in studying trends in new market segments.
They probe more behavioral profiles and values. These issues typ-
ically require qualitative approaches and may be applied to smaller
groups that can be urged to assure adequate response (such as cor-
porate managers, franchise owners, or association elected leaders).
Still, questions still may be asked of the more casual constituent,
depending on need. The queries illustrated in Figure 8-6 are more182 Chapter 8 Trends in Event Marketing