New technical marketing research methods-a process for achieving focused results

One of the greatest challenges confronting marketing has been the gathering, digesting, and prioritizing technical marketing information. Today, gathering the information is a lot easier via the Internet. In some ways it is much more difficult due to the amount of information available and the accuracy of that information. This was dramatically exemplified in a technical study conducted on behalf of an industry association. This paper provides the details of the data gathering and analysis process used to condense it into easily usable material on over 4000 ICs that are available today for DC-DC power supplies. The issues are identified that confront such an undertaking. The developed survey provides insight into methods that can effectively identify, sort, and prioritize significant amounts of technical data. The results are reported and examined as to the effectiveness. Finally the surprises encountered and lessons learned are candidly stated with further suggestions for process improvement. Engineering and marketing managers may find this process helpful for future data gathering for any technology.