MARKETING

RESEARCH
WHAT IS A MARKETING RESEARCH

• The systematic design, collection, analysis, and reporting of data relevant to a specific
marketing situation facing an organization.
• For example, marketing research gives marketers insights into customer motivations,
purchase behavior, and satisfaction. It can help them to assess market potential and
market share or measure the effectiveness of pricing, product, distribution, and
promotion activities.
• Some large companies have their own research departments that work with marketing
managers on marketing research projects. In addition, these companies—like their
smaller counterparts—frequently hire outside research specialists to consult with
management on specific marketing problems and to conduct marketing research studies.
Sometimes firms simply purchase data collected by outside firms to aid in their decision
making.
THE MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS

Defining the Developing the Implementing the

Interpreting and
problem and research plan research plan--
collecting and
reporting the
research for collecting
analyzing the data findings
objectives information
1. DEFINING PROBLEM AND RESEARCH
OBJECTIVES
• Marketing managers and researchers must work together closely to define the
problem and agree on research objectives.
• The manager best understands the decision for which information is needed,
whereas the researcher best understands marketing research and how to obtain
the information.
• Defining the problem and research objectives is often the hardest step in the
research process. The manager may know that something is wrong without
knowing the specific causes.
• After the problem has been defined carefully, the manager and the researcher
must set the research objectives.
 1. EXPLORATORY RESEARCH - Marketing research to
1. A. gather preliminary information that will help define
problems and suggest hypotheses.

TYPES OF 2. DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH - Marketing research to

better describe marketing problems, situations, or
markets, such as the market potential for a product
MARKETI 3.
or the demographics and attitudes of consumers.
CAUSAL RESEARCH - Marketing research to test
NG hypotheses about cause-and-effect relationships.

RESEARC The statement of the problem and research objectives

guides the entire research process. The manager and the

H
researcher should put the statement in writing to be
certain that they agree on the purpose and expected
results of the research.
2. DEVELOPING THE RESEARCH PLAN

• Once researchers have defined the research problem and objectives, they
must determine the exact information needed, develop a plan for
gathering it efficiently, and present the plan to management.
• The research plan outlines sources of existing data and spells out the
specific research approaches, contact methods, sampling plans, and
instruments that researchers will use to gather new data.
• Research objectives must be translated into specific information needs.
2. A. THE PROPOSED RESEARCH MIGHT CALL FOR THE
FOLLOWING SPECIFIC INFORMATION:
1. The demographic, economic, and lifestyle characteristics of current business customers:
a. Do other businesses use the same strategy?
b. Are these strategies consistent to the need and lifestyle of customers?
c. Does the business need to target a new segment of consumers?
2. The characteristics and usage patterns of the broader population of the business:
a. What do they need and expect from such business?
b. Where, when, and how do they use them, and what existing quality, price, and service levels do
they value?
c. Would the new service require strong, relevant, and distinctive positioning in the market.
3. Impact on the customer experience:
a. Would the new strategy be consistent?
b. Would the new strategy bring a high-quality experience to the customers?
4. Business employee reactions to the new strategy or service:
a. Do the employees support the new strategy?
b. Would the new strategy disrupt operations and employees ability to deliver high-quality
product, service, or experience?
5. Forecasts of both existing products and the new strategy sales and profits:
a. Would the new strategy create new sales and customers or simply take sales away from current
inside operations?
• The research plan should be presented in a written proposal. A written proposal
is especially important when the research project is large and complex or when
an outside firm carries it out.
• The proposal should cover the management problems addressed, the research
objectives, the information to be obtained, and how the results will help
management’s decision making. The proposal also should include estimated
research costs.
• To meet the manager’s information needs, the research plan can call for
gathering secondary data, primary data, or both. SECONDARY DATA consist of
information that already exists somewhere, having been collected for another
purpose. PRIMARY DATA consist of information collected for the specific purpose
at hand.
 Researchers usually start by gathering secondary data. The company’s
internal database provides a good starting point. However, the
company can also tap into a wide assortment of external information
sources. However, the company can also tap into a wide assortment
of external information sources.

GATHERING Companies can buy secondary data from outside suppliers.

SECONDARY Secondary data can usually be obtained more quickly and at a lower

DATA cost than primary data. Also, secondary sources can sometimes
provide data an individual company cannot collect on its own—
information that either is not directly available or would be too
expensive to collect.

Secondary data can also present problems

 COMMERCIAL ONLINE
SOURCES DATABASES

OF
SECONDAR
Y DATA INTERNET SEARCH ENGINES
 RELEVANT - fits the research project’s
THINGS TO needs.

CONSIDER
WHEN ACCURATE - reliably collected and
reported.
USING
SECONDARY CURRENT - up-to-date enough for
DATA: (Is current decisions.

it….)
IMPARTIAL - objectively collected and
reported.
 • Primary data is information collected through
GATHERING original or first-hand research. For example,
surveys and focus group discussions.
THE
PRIMARY
DATA
RESEARCH APPROACHES OF PRIMARY DATA

1. Observational Research - involves gathering primary data by observing relevant

people, actions, and situations. Researchers often observe consumer behavior to glean
customer insights they can’t obtain by simply asking customers questions. Ex. traffic
patterns, neighborhood conditions, and the locations of competing Whole Foods, Fresh
Market, and other retail chains. Exploratory Research.
2. Ethnographic Research - involves sending observers to watch and interact with
consumers in their “natural environments.” The observers might be trained
anthropologists and psychologists or company researchers and managers. The
researchers use the town as a real-life lab, hob-knobbing anonymously with bar
patrons, supermarket shoppers, restaurant diners, convenience store clerks, and other
townspeople to gain authentic insights into how consumers buy, drink, dine, and
socialize around Coors and competing beer brands.
3. Survey Research - the most widely used method for primary data collection, is the
approach best suited for gathering descriptive information. A company that wants
to know about people’s knowledge, attitudes, preferences, or buying behavior can
often find out by asking them directly. The major advantage of survey research is
its flexibility; it can be used to obtain many kinds of information in many different
situations. Surveys addressing almost any marketing question or decision can be
conducted by phone or mail, online, or in person. Descriptive Research.
4. Experimental Research - best suited for gathering causal information. Experiments
involve selecting matched groups of subjects, giving them different treatments,
controlling unrelated factors, and checking for differences in group responses.
Thus, experimental research tries to explain cause-and-effect relationships.
5. Contact Methods - Information can be collected by mail, by telephone, by personal interview, or
online. Each contact method has its own particular strengths and weaknesses.
a. Mail Questionnaires - can be used to collect large amounts of information at a low cost per
respondent. Respondents may give more honest answers on a mail questionnaire than to an
unknown interviewer in person or over the phone. Also, no interviewer is involved to bias
respondents’ answers. However, mail questionnaires are not very flexible; all respondents
answer the same questions in a fixed order. And mail surveys usually take longer to complete
and response rates are often low. As a result, more and more marketers are now shifting to
faster, more flexible, and lower cost email, online, and mobile phone surveys.
b. Telephone Interviewing - is one of the best methods for gathering information quickly, and it
provides greater flexibility than mail questionnaires. Interviewers can explain difficult
questions and, depending on the answers they receive, skip some questions or probe on
others. Response rates tend to be higher than with mail questionnaires, and interviewers can
ask to speak to respondents with the desired characteristics or even by name. However, with
telephone interviewing, the cost per respondent is higher than with mail, online, or mobile
questionnaires. Also, people may not want to discuss personal questions with an interviewer.
The method introduces interviewer bias—the way interviewers talk, how they ask questions,
and other differences that may affect respondents’ answers.
 c. Personal Interviewing - takes two forms: individual interviewing and group interviewing. Individual
Interviewing involves talking with people in their homes or offices, on the street, or in shopping malls. Such
interviewing is flexible. Trained interviewers can guide interviews, explain difficult questions, and explore issues
as the situation requires. They can show subjects actual products, packages, advertisements, or videos and
observe reactions and behavior. However, individual personal interviews may cost three to four times as much
as telephone interviews. Group Interviewing consists of inviting small groups of people to meet with a trained
moderator to talk about a product, service, or organization. Participants normally are paid a small sum for
attending. A moderator encourages free and easy discussion, hoping that group interactions will bring out
deeper feelings and thoughts.
6. Online Marketing Research. The internet has had a dramatic impact on how marketing research
is conducted. Increasingly, researchers are collecting primary data through online marketing
research: internet and mobile surveys, online focus groups, consumer tracking, experiments, and
online panels and brand communities. The internet is especially well suited to quantitative
research—for example, conducting marketing surveys and collecting data. More than 90 percent
of all consumers now use the internet, making it a fertile channel for reaching a broad cross-
section of consumers. As response rates for traditional survey approaches decline and costs
increase, the internet is quickly replacing mail and the telephone as the dominant data collection
methodology. Internet-based surveys also tend to be more interactive and engaging, easier to
complete, and less intrusive than traditional phone or mail surveys. As a result, they usually
garner higher response rates.
a. Online Focus Groups. Gathering a small group of people online with a
trained moderator to chat about a product, service, or organization and gain
qualitative insights about consumer attitudes and behavior.
b. Online Behavioral and Social Tracking and Targeting. Using online
consumer tracking data to target advertisements and marketing offers to
specific consumers. In a practice called behavioral targeting, marketers use
the online data to target ads and offers to specific consumers. For example,
if you place a specific fruit blender in your Shopee shopping cart but don’t
buy it, you might expect to see some ads for that very type of blender the
next time you visit your favorite social media site. Online listening,
behavioral targeting, and social targeting can help marketers to harness the
massive amounts of consumer information swirling around the internet.
However, as marketers get more adept at trolling blogs, social networks,
and other internet and mobile domains, many critics worry about consumer
privacy.
THE SAMPLING PLAN
Marketing researchers usually draw conclusions about large groups
of consumers by studying a small sample of the total consumer
population.

A sample is a segment of the population selected for marketing

research to represent the population as a whole. Ideally, the sample
should be representative so that the researcher can make accurate
estimates of the thoughts and behaviors of the larger population.
 Who is to be studied (what
3 sampling unit)?
QUESTION
S How many people should be
REQUIRED included (what sample size)?
IN A
SAMPLE How should the people in the
PLAN sample be chosen (what
sampling procedure)?
2 TYPES OF SAMPLING PLAN
1. PROBABILITY SAMPLE:
Simple Random Sample Every member of the population has a known and equal chance of
selection.

Stratified Random Sample The population is divided into mutually exclusive groups (such as age
groups), and random samples are drawn from each group.

Cluster (area) Sample The population is divided into mutually exclusive groups (such as
blocks), and the researcher draws a sample of the groups to
interview
2. NONPROBABILITY SAMPLE

Convenience Sample The researcher selects the easiest population members from
which to obtain information.

Judgment Sample The researcher uses his or her judgment to select population
members who are good prospects for accurate information.

Quota Sample The researcher finds and interviews a prescribed number of

people in each of several categories.
THE RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS

In collecting primary data, marketing researchers have a

choice of two main research instruments: questionnaires
and mechanical devices.
• Questionnaires. The questionnaire is by far the most common instrument,
whether administered in person, by phone, by email, or online.
Questionnaires are very flexible—there are many ways to ask questions.
Closed-ended questions include all the possible answers, and subjects
make choices among them. Examples include multiple-choice questions
and scale questions. Open-ended questions allow respondents to answer in
their own words.
2. Mechanical Instruments. Although questionnaires are the most
common research instrument, researchers also use mechanical
instruments to monitor consumer behavior. For example, ABS-CBN
attaches people meters to television sets in homes who purchased
the TV Box to record who watches which programs. In some stores,
retailers use checkout scanners to record shoppers’ purchases.
Other marketers use mobile phone GPS technologies to track
consumer movements in and near their stores.
3. IMPLEMENTING THE RESEARCH PLAN

• The researcher next puts the marketing research plan into action. This
involves collecting, processing, and analyzing the information. Data
collection can be carried out by the company’s marketing research staff or
outside firms. Researchers should watch closely to make sure that the plan
is implemented correctly. They must guard against problems with data
collection techniques and technologies, data quality, and timeliness.
• Researchers must also process and analyze the collected data to isolate
important information and insights. They need to check data for accuracy
and completeness and code them for analysis. The researchers then
tabulate the results and compute statistical measures.
4. INTERPRETING AND REPORTING THE
FINDINGS

• The market researcher must now interpret the findings, draw conclusions, and report them to
management. The researcher should not try to overwhelm managers with numbers and fancy statistical
techniques. Rather, the researcher should present important findings and insights that are useful in the
major decisions faced by management.
• However, interpretation should not be left only to researchers. Although they are often experts in
research design and statistics, the marketing manager knows more about the problem and the decisions
that must be made. The best research means little if the manager blindly accepts faulty interpretations
from the researcher. Similarly, managers may be biased. They might tend to accept research results that
show what they expected and reject those that they did not expect or hope for. In many cases, findings
can be interpreted in different ways, and discussions between researchers and managers will help point
to the best interpretations. Thus, managers and researchers must work together closely when
interpreting research results, and both must share responsibility for the research process and resulting
decisions.
 • Marketing information has no value until it is used to make
DISTRIBUTIN better marketing decisions. Thus, the marketing
information system must make information readily
G AND USING available to managers and others who need it, when they
MARKETING need it. In some cases, this means providing managers with
regular performance reports, intelligence updates, and
INFORMATIO reports on the results of research studies.
• But marketing managers may also need access to
N nonroutine information for special situations and on-the-
spot decisions. For example, a sales manager having
trouble with a large customer may want a summary of the
account’s sales and profitability over the past year. Or a
brand manager may want to get a sense of the amount of
the social media buzz surrounding the recent launch of a
new product.