BUSN20016 Research In Business

Answer:

Problem statement

The traditional word of mouth marketing or WOM marketing is the way of marketing in which a particular consumer reflects interests for a particular product or a particular service with the help of verbal dialogs (Blazevic et al., 2013). In the word of mouth marketing, the customer feels more satisfied as they are approached personally by the companies and appears to be more effective and reliable as compared to that of the social networking where the main objective is to connect with the people socially within a specified community (Scott, 2015). It is persuasive in nature because it does not contain any personal approach to each of the individuals and thus consumers cannot rely on the means (McDaniel & Gates, 2013).

 The aim of the research proposal is to evaluate the reliability of traditional word of mouth marketing over social networking and the reason for being persuasive in nature.

The objectives of the research proposal are as follows:

1. To evaluate the difference between social networking and the traditional word of mouth marketing.
2. To examine the persuasive nature of the social networking websites in the field of trade and commerce.
3. To recommend the effective ways in which the social networking sites can improve their marketing strategy.

Research methodology

The research methodology involves various techniques of research progression in an organised and structured manner.

To organize a research proposal successfully it is important for the research to rely on the substantial collection of both primary data and the secondary data (Ritchie et al., 2013). The primary data is of two type namely quantitative data including surveys or feedbacks and qualitative data including interviews or case studies (Silverman, 2016). The secondary data comprises data from books or journals. The chosen data collection method for this proposal will be few interviews and surveys. It will also contain data from books and journals.

This type of data collection method is chosen for a better understanding of the persuasive nature of social networking over a traditional word of mouth marketing (Perrin, 2015). The data collected from personal interviews will help to judge particular cases while the data collected from the surveys will be helpful to determine a specific sample size within a specific region (Hussein, 2015). Secondary data from books and journals will also be referred for resourcing the collected data from primary sources. The research methodology used in this proposal is the mixed methodology approach. The mixed methodology of data collection will help to analyse both the qualitative and quantitative data.

Data analysis and identification of secondary sources

As mentioned in previous section, this study will be conducted with the help of secondary sources for data collection and analysis. The secondary data will be collected from ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) database which is available online and it comprises wide variety of data. Particularly, the demographic characteristics of the customers, purchase behaviours and access platforms means online shopping websites, social networking sites or word of mouth will be collected from the database.

The collected data will be structured in a well manner using Excel spreadsheet which will comprise of the demographic characteristics, purchase behaviour of customers and the platform that attracts them to go for shopping. Then, Regression and Correlation analysis will be performed by choosing variables from the collected data. 

References

Blazevic, V., Hammedi, W., Garnefeld, I., Rust, R. T., Keiningham, T., Andreassen, T. W., ... & Carl, W. (2013). Beyond traditional word-of-mouth: an expanded model of customer-driven influence. Journal of Service Management, 24(3), 294-313.

Flick, U. (2015). Introducing research methodology: A beginner's guide to doing a research project. Sage.

Hussein, A. (2015). The use of triangulation in social sciences research: Can qualitative and quantitative methods be combined?. Journal of comparative social work, 4(1).

Irwin, S. (2013). Qualitative secondary data analysis: Ethics, epistemology and context. Progress in Development Studies, 13(4), 295-306.

McDaniel, C., & Gates, R. (2013). Marketing research. Singapore.

Perrin, A. (2015). Social media usage. Pew research center, 52-68.

Ritchie, J., Lewis, J., Nicholls, C. M., & Ormston, R. (Eds.). (2013). Qualitative research practice: A guide for social science students and researchers. Sage.

Scott, D. M. (2015). The new rules of marketing and PR: How to use social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases, and viral marketing to reach buyers directly. John Wiley & Sons.

Silverman, D. (Ed.). (2016). Qualitative research. Sage.

Tsimonis, G., & Dimitriadis, S. (2014). Brand strategies in social media. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 32(3), 328-344.