Question

any new products undergo market testing before being launched on a full scale. Market testing is very common with consumer goods and with expensive industrial goods and new technologies.

summarize and discuss some of the market testing methods that are most commonly used in practice

Answer 1

Test marketing involves launching the product in small part (usually geographic) part of the target market in order to gauge the viability of a product or service in the target market prior to a main roll-out or launch.

Consumer-Goods Market Testing:::

This test is conducted to know the consumer behavior in terms of trail, repeat, adoption, and purchase frequency.

Some variable tests are:

1. Sales-Wave Research:

The consumer is offered the product, again and again, free of cost. This is done to determine the willingness of the customers to use the product every time it is offered.

2. Simulated Test Marketing:

30-40 customers are selected and are invited to the store where they can buy anything. The new products are placed with the old or competitor’s product and then consumer’s preference is ascertained through their selection of the products.In case, the new product is not chosen by them, then the free samples are given to the customers and are inquired telephonically about their product experience after some weeks.

3. Controlled Test Marketing:

The company select certain stores in different geographic areas and ask them to keep its new product into their stores in return for a fee. The company controls the shelf position, displays, point of purchase promotions and pricing.

4. Test Markets:

The firm chooses the representative cities where the full-fledged launch of the new product is done starting from the promotion campaign to the ultimate sales. Once it is successful, the firm goes for the national launch.

Industrial-Goods Market Testing:::

Two types:

Alpha Testing: The alpha testing is done within the firm by test engineers or employees who check the marketing mix of a new product and fix the issues arising in any steps of launch.

Beta Testing: The Beta Testing is done with the customers where they are asked to use the product and give their feedback on its usage.The other way to test the business goods is to introduce it to the trade shows and observe the reaction of customers to it. Also, these goods can be tested at distributors and dealers showrooms the attention of the customers can be gained.

A/B testing::

A/B testing is a tool that is very revealing for analyzing the design and effectiveness of landing pages, calls to action, subject lines (email), headlines, form length and types, web page layouts and styles, promotional offers, product pricing, images, length of copy and much more. When conducting A/B testing two identical items are created and one or two elements are adjusted to see which resonate better with the target audience. Then the two different versions are offered up randomly to see which gets the most desired results sign ups, downloads, etc