Handbook Of Social Work Research Methods - Myassignmenthelp.Com

Questions: What Is The Impact Of Online Media In The Consumer Purchase Decision? Does Online Media Increase The Sales Of The Organization? Answers: Introducation The purpose of the project is to identify the effectiveness of the online media in the consumer purchase decision. The present research will identify the consumer behavior, purchase intent and shopping behavior of the consumers working in Charles and Keith. It is a Singapore-based company which sells fast-fashion footwear With the advent of internet, several small and medium enterprises have emerged which have increased the competition in the marketplace. In this situation, it is important that the organizations focus on developing strategies which can convert the potential leads to sale (Gordon, 2014). The present research study will examine the impact of brand awareness in increasing the sales of the operations. The research questions of the study will be framed as Personal Learning Objectives The research project will be beneficial in increasing the sales of organization. The research project will be beneficial in increasing the knowledge regarding the impact of the brand awareness and brand recognition of the organization in the consumer purchase decision. In addition to it, the research will also enhance my research skills. The process of research requires extensive patience and punctuality; therefore, I will practice to engage in extensive labor. Literature Review In the perception of Chen, Teng, Yu, Yu (2015), in the last decade, the purchase behavior of the consumers have undergone a lot of change. It is considered that the arrival of internet has changed the manner in which the consumers conduct research on the business organizations. In order to make a well-informed decision, the customers can interact with the online chat rooms, forums, or they can visit the manufacturer website for more brand related information. Moreover, the type and the source through which the brand-related information is collected will have a significant role in the purchase decision of the customers. In order to develop efficient brand strategies, the brand managers should identify the usefulness of different types of brand information and the impact of this information in the purchase decisions of the consumers. In the present, electronic-word of mouth and third party information can influence the purchase decision of the purchase intent of the consumers. However, Scheinbaum (2012) has suggested that the perceived information exchange in management environment as untrustworthy. Some consumers rely more on consumer exchange as it is less susceptible to the commercial motives. The recommendations from the companys agents which are based on the consumers desired utility and functions reduce the search efforts of the consumers. However, if the agents are not believable or autonomous, they can give biased reviews and result in bias in decision-making of the consumers. In addition to it, there are several information sources which are not perceived as trustworthy by the consumers. In the perception of Schivinski, Dabrowski (2016), today, nearly everyone has a social media account and use social media to share their information. With the growing number of internet users, it has become necessary for the communication managers to understand the online consumer behavior. The consumers are proactively using the social media websites for the information exchange and spending more time on this rather than on the traditional broadcast media (television, radio and newspapers). According to Kubacki (2014) social media sites have transformed the traditional one-way communication and adapted it into multi-dimensional, two-way, peer-to-peer communication. The social media platforms increases the opportunity of the organization to interact with their consumers and consumers to interact with other consumers. Therefore, the business organizations are not the only source of brand communication. The traditional brand communication was controlled by administrators and marketing managers; however, it is now shaped by the consumers. In the views of Huang Sarigll (2014), brand awareness can be defined as the phenomenon in which the consumers can recall or identify the brand. The brand awareness is interlinked with the brand equity. The brand name is an important asset as the consumers can link the brand knowledge with the brand name which results in brand equity. The most significant aspect of the brand equity is that it provides learning advantage for the consumers. While making the purchase decision, the consumers give priority to the brands about which they have prior knowledge. Therefore, brand awareness can increase the performance of the brand in the marketplace. However, there is little research on the brand awareness of the organization. As per the views of Boone Kurtz (2015) is significant association between the brand awareness and the consumer decision making. The consumers use the brand awareness as a significant criteria in the purchase decision. A well-known brand is more likely to perform better in the market. There are significantly higher chances that a consumer will select a well-known brand rather than a significantly lesser-known brand. In the present times, there are high chances that the incidental encounters with the brand and the frequency of the encounter will increase the probability that the consumer will select the brand. However, in B2B environment, high corporate brand awareness does not result in direct sales. However, the brand awareness and the market performance are directly related. There are also other factors such as shopping environment, product placement, and the promotion which can increase the outcomes at the market. According to Xie Lee (2015), social media advertising is quite different from the traditional media sources as it assist the communication between the firms and between the consumers. As per the social media activity, the social media messages can be divided into earned social media and owned social media messages. The earned social media refers to the social media activities which are related to specific brand which are not generated by the brand owner or his associates. The marketing actions can enhance the social media activity; however, they are not the main generator. The owned social media activity is generated by the brand owner and they can enhance control over social media activity. In the views of Lake (2009), interactive nature of the social media can enhance the earned and owned social activities which can scale up the brand and the associated publicity around the brand. However, the relative effectiveness of marketing efforts through earned and owned social media activities is not yet analyzed. According to Evans (2010) has also highlighted that the consumers receiving the brand related information from social sources are more likely to have purchase intent rather than the customers who have received the brand related information from the traditional sources. The consumer generated earned social media is also called electronic word-of-mouth has a high impact on the consumer purchase behavior. Ioannides (2012), highlights that effective marketing efforts requires aligning different marketing methods and advertising channels which can increase the effectiveness of the promotion on the purchase decision of the consumers. The marketing channels as well as marketing methods such as sales, diffusion and the consumer acquisition are essential in effective marketing methods. The study supports the theory of planned behavior in which the people respond to the information signals and proceed to different stages of brand awareness and knowledge building. The uninformed customers respond to the information signals, proceed to the stage in which they are informed of the product and at last they purchase the product online. The literature has highlighted that the brand awareness is a result of the social media activity of the organization. Lu, Chang, Chang (2014) have discussed the phenomenon of blog posts on the consumer purchase behavior. As per the literature, the blog posts refers to a form of consumer review which discusses the benefits and promote the products on their personal blog. However, most of the countries have made the market regulations in which the market sponsorship has to be revealed in the blog posts. Therefore, sponsored blog posts would not be able to conceal the marketing intent of the posts. Kubacki (2014) has discussed the attitude of the consumers towards the sponsored recommendations. Therefore, analyzing the intent of the consumers towards the sponsored posts is essential in assessing the effectiveness of the marketing efforts. The result of the literature highlights that if the products promoted in the blog posts have high brand awareness, then the consumers have high purchase intent towards the product. Sources of Data The data collection methods are an integral part of the research study. It refers to the methods which are used to collect data from different sources for the research study. The data collection sources can be categorized as primary sources and secondary sources. The primary sources are the sources in which the data is directly collected by the researcher. The researcher collects the data directly for the research study. The research data is collected for the research; therefore, it is expensive in nature. There are various methods of data collection through the primary methods. It includes survey, interview, questionnaire method or observation. In contrary to it, there are several sources in which the researcher utilizes the data collected previously (Freisen, 2010). It refers to the data collected through companys annual report, CSR report, newspaper publications and through internet. These methods are cost-effective as well as the data can be collected easily through them. The tim eline of data collection process also significantly reduces as all the data is previously available in the internet sources. The data collection methods can also be categorized as qualitative methods and quantitative methods. The qualitative methods refers to the methods in which the information collected us qualitative in nature. This information cannot be represented or denoted by numerical methods. The information collected through interview or observation methods is qualitative in nature (Walliman, 2010). The quantitative data collection methods refers to those methods in which the information can be presented through statistical methods. The survey or questionnaires are the quantitative data collection methods. Proposed Methodology In the present research, the researcher will use the survey method to collect primary data. It is a convenient, cost-effective and easy method. The survey method is used to identify the impact of brand awareness and digital media marketing strategies on the purchase decision of the customers. A survey questionnaire is developed to obtain the responses of the interview candidates. The survey is conducted with the online customers so that their intent and factors affecting their purchase decision can be identified. The survey will be conducted with 100 research participants. The research participants will be selected with the help of random sampling. It is the easiest sampling method in which each member of sampling population has equal chances of being selected in the survey (Skinner, Edwards Corbett, 2014). The sample represents the characteristics of the entire population. It represents the entire population and each member of the population has equal chances of being chosen. The survey questionnaire will be sent with the help of email to the survey participants. The survey participants will be the consumers of the Charles Keith. The survey participants will have to fill a consent form in which they shows that they agree to the research. The research participants have to fill the consent form and send it with the survey questionnaire. The survey questionnaire will be sent on the email addresses of the respondents. A specific time window will be decided and the participants have to fill the form and send it within the time window. Challenges in Research Research requires extensive hard work and time investment. However, there are several challenges which can jeopardize the credibility and authenticity of the research work. In order to maintain the credibility of the research work, the researcher has assured that he will obtain the information from the authentic sources such as journal articles, books and renowned magazines. Unreliable sources such as Wikipedia and blog articles will be avoided. Moreover, the researcher will also try to protect the personal information of the research participants. The personal information as well as email IDs of the research participants will not be revealed (Benedetti, Piersimoni, Bee Espa, 2010). There are also several challenges in conducting a successful survey. The first challenge is that the response rate of the survey is declining over the years. Moreover, obtaining a distribution list of the respondents is quite difficult (Skinner, Edwards Corbett, 2014). There can also be issues with the designing of the questionnaire. Several times the questions are misleading, the questions can be long or the questions are not capable of answering the research questions. Outline of the Chapters In order to successfully implement the research, the researcher should conduct the research in parts. In this regard, the research study is divided into five chapters so that the complete research can be presented in a clear and concise manner. The chapters of the research are discussed in the below section: Introduction: In the introduction chapter, the researcher will give the background information of the research subject. It will discuss the background to the problem, research questions and the aims and objective of the research. Literature Review: The literature review is a significant chapter of the research study and discusses all the current knowledge pertaining to the research subject. In the literature review, the researcher discusses all the current knowledge of the field of the research subject. The researcher synthesizes all the current knowledge in the field of the research subject and present them to the reader. Literature review is important tin understanding all the relevant advancements in the research topic. It is also important in understanding the potential gaps in the current knowledge and the research topics. Research Methodology: The research methodology discusses all the potential methods, tools and technologies which will be send in the research. The research methodology discusses all the relevant tools and practices and then selects he most appropriate one for the research. Data Collection and Analysis: In this chapter, the research collects the data from different sources, interpret them and present them to the reader. The obtained data is analyzed through different data analysis methods. Conclusion: In this chapter, the researcher concludes the research. Expected Schedule It is proposed that the research will be completed in five months. The proposed research will be submitted in April 2018. Determining the timeline of the research is important for the researcher as it assists the researcher to complete the research in logical and coherent manner. Activities/Months Dec 2017 Jan 2018 Feb 2018 March 2018 Apr 2018 Project Proposal Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Data Collection Conclusion References Benedetti, R., Piersimoni, F., Bee, M., Espa, G. (2010). Agricultural Survey Methods. John Wiley Sons. Boone, L.E., Kurtz, D.L. (2015). Contemporary Economics. Cengage Learning. Charles Keith. (2018). About us. Retrieved 23 January 2018 from https://www.charleskeith.com/sg/ Chen, J., Teng, L., Yu, Y., Yu, X. (2016). The effect of online information sources on purchase intentions between consumers with high and low susceptibility to informational influence. Journal of Business Research 69, 467-475. Evans, D. (2010). Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day. John Wiley Sons. Freisen, B.K. (2010). Designing and Conducting Your First Interview Project. John Wiley Sons. Gordon, B. (2014). Computer-Mediated Marketing Strategies: Social Media and Online Brand Communities: Social Media and Online Brand Communities. IGI Global. Huang, R., Sarigll, E. (2014). How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand equity, and the marketing mix. InFashion Branding and Consumer Behaviors(pp. 113-132). Springer New York. Ioannides, D. (2012). Social Media in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality: Theory, Practice and Cases. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Kubacki, K. (2014). Ideas in Marketing: Finding the New and Polishing the Old: Proceedings of the 2013 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference. Springer. Kubacki, K. (2014). Ideas in Marketing: Finding the New and Polishing the Old: Proceedings of the 2013 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference. Springer. Lake, L. (2009). Consumer Behavior For Dummies. John Wiley Sons. Lu, L. C., Chang, W. P., Chang, H. H. (2014). Consumer attitudes toward bloggers sponsored recommendations and purchase intention: The effect of sponsorship type, product type, and brand awareness.Computers in Human Behavior,34, 258-266. Scheinbaum, A.C. (2012). Online Consumer Behavior: Theory and Research in Social Media, psychology and E-tail. Routledge. Schivinski, B., Dabrowski, D. (2016). The effect of social media communication on consumer perceptions of brands.Journal of Marketing Communications,22(2), 189-214. Skinner, J., Edwards, A., Corbett, B. (2014). Research Methods for Sport Management. Routledge. Thyer, B. (2010). The Handbook of Social Work Research Methods. SAGE. Walliman, N. (2010). Research Methods: The Basics. Routledge. Xie, K., Lee, Y. J. (2015). Social media and brand purchase: Quantifying the effects of exposures to earned and owned social media activities in a two-stage decision making model.Journal of Management Information Systems,32(2), 204-238.