marketing research process in business management

8 Key Steps of Marketing Research Process: Ultimate Guide

Marketing research is the backbone of successful business strategies, especially in the ever-evolving world of events. This guide dives into the 8 key steps of the marketing research process, giving you a roadmap to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Whether you're new to event planning or a seasoned pro, understanding these steps can help you boost attendance, improve engagement, and maximize your ROI.

We'll break down each step, from defining your problem to evaluating your results, in easy-to-understand terms. You'll learn how to collect meaningful data, analyze it effectively, and turn those insights into action. Plus, we'll show you how to avoid common pitfalls and apply best practices that can save you time and money.

By the end of this guide, you'll have a solid grasp on how to conduct marketing research that can transform your event planning strategy. Ready to level up your event game? Let's dive in!

What is Marketing Research?

Marketing research is the systematic process of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information about a market, product, or service. It's a crucial tool for businesses to make informed decisions, understand their customers better, and stay competitive in the market.

The main purpose of marketing research is to reduce uncertainty in decision-making. It helps companies:

• Identify market opportunities
• Understand customer needs and preferences
• Evaluate the effectiveness of marketing strategies
• Track competitors' activities

By conducting thorough marketing research, businesses can minimize risks and maximize their chances of success. It's particularly valuable for event organizers who need to understand their target audience and create compelling experiences.

For example, an event planner might use marketing research to determine the best date, venue, and content for an upcoming conference. This data-driven approach can significantly boost attendance and participant satisfaction.

To streamline the event planning process, tools like EventX's event registration system can be invaluable. They not only help manage registrations but also provide valuable data for ongoing marketing research.

Learn more about EventX's event registration system

The 8 Key Steps of the Marketing Research Process

Marketing research isn't just about collecting data. It's a structured process that helps businesses make informed decisions. Let's break down the 8 key steps that make up this crucial process.

• Define the Problem or Opportunity: This is where it all starts. You need to clearly identify what you're trying to solve or achieve. For example, you might want to understand why your event attendance is dropping.
• Develop the Research Plan: Here, you decide how you'll gather information. Will you use surveys, interviews, or both? How many people will you include in your study?
• Collect Data: This step involves gathering the information you need. You might use tools like EventX's lead finder to help with this.
• Analyze the Data: Once you have your data, it's time to make sense of it. Look for patterns and insights that answer your initial question.
• Present the Findings: Share what you've learned in a clear, easy-to-understand way. Visual aids can be really helpful here.
• Make Decisions: Use your findings to decide what actions to take. Maybe you need to change your event marketing strategy?
• Implement the Decision: Put your plan into action. This might involve using tools like EventX's event ticketing platform.
• Evaluate the Results: Finally, check if your actions made a difference. Did event attendance improve? If not, you might need to start the process again.

Remember, marketing research is an ongoing process. It helps you stay in tune with your audience and make better business decisions.

1. Define the Problem or Opportunity

Let's kick things off with the first crucial step in marketing research: nailing down the problem or opportunity. It's like setting your GPS before a road trip - you need to know where you're going before you start driving.

Why is this step so important? Simple. If you don't know what you're looking for, you'll waste time and resources chasing the wrong leads. It's like trying to fix a leaky faucet when your real problem is a broken water heater.

So, how do you define your research objectives? Start by asking questions. What's bugging you about your current situation? What do you want to achieve? Be specific. Instead of saying "We want more customers," try "We want to increase event attendance by 25% in the next six months."

Here's a real-world example: imagine you're running a series of tech conferences, but attendance has been dropping. Your research objective might be: "To understand why attendance at our tech conferences has declined by 30% over the past year."

Remember, a well-defined problem is half solved. So take your time with this step - it'll make the rest of your research journey much smoother.

2. Develop the Research Plan

Once you've nailed down your research objectives, it's time to craft your game plan. This step is all about choosing the right research methods and figuring out who you're going to study.

First up, decide whether you're going qualitative or quantitative - or maybe a mix of both. Qualitative research, like focus groups or interviews, gives you deep insights into people's thoughts and feelings. Quantitative research, such as surveys, gives you hard numbers to crunch.

Next, think about your sample size and who you're going to include. You want a group that represents your target audience well. Remember, bigger isn't always better - a well-chosen smaller sample can sometimes give you more accurate results than a larger, poorly selected one.

Don't forget to consider your budget and timeline when planning. These factors can influence your choice of methods and sample size.

To make your research more efficient, consider using tech tools. For example, EventX's lead finder feature can help you identify potential participants for your research, saving you time and effort in the recruitment process.

By the end of this step, you should have a clear plan outlining your research methods, sample, timeline, and budget. This roadmap will guide you through the rest of the process, keeping you focused and on track.

EventX's lead finder feature

3. Collect Relevant Data and Information

Gathering the right data is crucial for your marketing research. You've got two main ways to go about this: primary and secondary data collection.

Primary data is info you collect firsthand. Think surveys, interviews, or focus groups. It's tailored to your specific needs but can be time-consuming and pricey.

Secondary data, on the other hand, is existing info from sources like industry reports or government databases. It's usually cheaper and faster to get, but might not be as specific to your needs.

Remember, the key is to choose methods that align with your research objectives. If you're trying to understand why event attendance is dropping, a mix of surveys and interviews might be your best bet.

Whatever method you choose, make sure your data collection is consistent and unbiased. This will help ensure your results are reliable and actionable.

4. Analyze the Data

Once you've collected your data, it's time to roll up your sleeves and make sense of it all. Data analysis is where the rubber meets the road in marketing research. It's about turning raw numbers and feedback into actionable insights.

Start by organizing your data. Use spreadsheets or specialized software to sort and categorize information. Look for patterns and trends. Are certain responses more common than others? Do you see any surprising correlations?

For quantitative data, basic statistical analysis can be your best friend. Calculate averages, percentages, and standard deviations. These can give you a quick snapshot of your data's story. For qualitative data, content analysis techniques can help you identify themes and sentiments.

Don't shy away from data visualization. Graphs and charts can make complex data easier to understand and present. Tools like Tableau or even Excel can help create compelling visuals.

Remember, the goal isn't just to crunch numbers. It's to answer your research questions and provide insights that can drive decision-making. Always tie your analysis back to your original objectives.

5. Present the Findings

Once you've crunched the numbers, it's time to share your insights. Presenting your findings clearly is crucial for driving action. Start by crafting a concise executive summary that highlights key takeaways. Use visuals like charts and graphs to make complex data easy to understand at a glance.

When creating your presentation, remember your audience. Tailor your language and level of detail to their needs and expertise. For example, C-suite executives might want high-level insights, while marketing teams may need more granular data.

Don't just dump data on your audience. Tell a story with your findings. What trends did you uncover? What do they mean for the business? Use real-world examples to bring your insights to life.

Finally, make your presentation interactive. Encourage questions and discussion. This helps ensure everyone understands the implications of your research.

For event organizers, presenting findings on attendee behavior can be particularly powerful. Understanding what drives attendance can help you optimize future events. Check out EventX's blog on best event registration platforms for ideas on how to gather and present this kind of data effectively.

EventX's blog on best event registration platforms

6. Make Data-Driven Decisions

Once you've got your research findings, it's time to put them to work. Making data-driven decisions means using the insights you've gathered to shape your strategy. But it's not just about blindly following numbers - you need to balance data with your experience and gut feeling.

For example, let's say your research shows that people are skipping your events because they're too long. You might decide to shorten your events or break them into smaller sessions. But you'd also want to consider other factors, like the content quality and networking opportunities, before making drastic changes.

Remember, data should guide your decisions, not dictate them. It's about finding that sweet spot between what the numbers tell you and what you know about your audience and industry.

When making decisions:

• Review your research objectives
• Identify key findings that address these objectives
• Brainstorm potential actions based on these findings
• Evaluate each option considering both data and practical factors
• Choose the most promising strategy to implement

By following this approach, you're more likely to make choices that truly improve your events and boost attendance.

7. Implement the Decision

Once you've made data-driven decisions based on your marketing research, it's time to put them into action. This step is crucial for turning insights into tangible results. Start by creating a detailed action plan that outlines specific steps, responsibilities, and timelines.

For example, if your research shows that potential attendees prefer virtual events, you might decide to shift your focus to online platforms. Your action plan could include:

• Selecting a virtual event platform
• Training your team on new technologies
• Adjusting your marketing strategy to promote virtual events

Assign clear responsibilities to team members and set realistic deadlines for each task. This ensures accountability and keeps the implementation process on track.

Remember, implementation isn't a one-time event. It's an ongoing process that requires monitoring and adjustment. Be prepared to make changes as you go, based on real-world feedback and results.

To streamline your event management process during implementation, consider using an Event ticketing platform like EventX. It can help you manage registrations, ticket sales, and attendee data efficiently, making it easier to implement your research-based decisions.

8. Evaluate the Results

After implementing decisions based on your marketing research, it's crucial to evaluate the results. This step helps you understand the impact of your actions and guides future strategies.

Start by comparing your current metrics to your baseline data. For events, this might include attendance rates, engagement levels, or revenue generated. Use tools like Google Analytics or your event management platform to track these metrics easily.

Don't just look at numbers – gather qualitative feedback too. Send out post-event surveys or conduct focus groups to get deeper insights. This human element can reveal unexpected outcomes or areas for improvement.

Remember, evaluation is an ongoing process. Set up regular check-ins to monitor progress over time. This allows you to make quick adjustments if needed and keeps your strategy agile.

If results don't meet expectations, don't panic. Use this as a learning opportunity. Analyze what went wrong and brainstorm ways to improve for next time.

Lastly, share your findings with your team. Celebrate successes and discuss challenges openly. This fosters a culture of continuous improvement and data-driven decision making.

Common Challenges in the Marketing Research Process

Let's face it: marketing research isn't always smooth sailing. Here are some common hurdles you might encounter:

Budget constraints can be a real pain. Quality research often comes with a hefty price tag, and many businesses struggle to allocate sufficient funds. This can lead to cutting corners or settling for less reliable data.

Time limitations are another biggie. In today's fast-paced market, there's often pressure to get results quickly. But rushing the process can compromise the quality of your findings.

Data quality issues can throw a wrench in the works too. It's not just about quantity – the information you gather needs to be accurate and relevant. Unreliable data can lead to misguided decisions.

How can you tackle these challenges? Consider using cost-effective online survey tools or leveraging existing customer data. Prioritize your research objectives to make the most of limited time. And always double-check your data sources for reliability.

Remember, even with these hurdles, good marketing research is worth the effort. It provides invaluable insights that can give your business a competitive edge.

Best Practices for Effective Marketing Research

To get the most out of your marketing research, it's crucial to follow some best practices. First, stay objective throughout the process. Your personal biases can skew results, so approach each step with an open mind.

Ethical research practices are non-negotiable. Always get consent from participants and protect their privacy. Be transparent about your research goals and how you'll use the data.

Leverage technology to boost efficiency. Use online survey tools, data analysis software, and project management platforms to streamline your work. For example, EventX's event registration system can help collect valuable attendee data efficiently.

Keep your research focused on your objectives. It's easy to get sidetracked by interesting but irrelevant data. Stick to information that directly addresses your research questions.

Lastly, don't forget to validate your findings. Cross-check data from multiple sources and consider getting peer reviews. This helps ensure your conclusions are solid and actionable.

By following these practices, you'll conduct more effective research that leads to better business decisions. Remember, good research is an investment in your company's future success.

Let's wrap this up. We've walked through the 8 key steps of the marketing research process, from defining the problem to evaluating results. These steps aren't just theory – they're practical tools you can use right now to boost your marketing game.

Remember, good marketing research isn't about guesswork. It's about being systematic, thorough, and objective. By following these steps, you're setting yourself up for success, whether you're planning an event or launching a new product.

Don't be intimidated by the process. Start small if you need to, but start somewhere. Maybe begin with a simple survey at your next event. Use the data to make one improvement, then build from there.

The more you practice these steps, the more natural they'll become. And the payoff? Better decisions, more effective marketing, and ultimately, better results for your business or events.

So, what are you waiting for? Take what you've learned here and put it into action. Your next marketing win could be just a research project away.

Additional Resources

Ready to dive deeper into marketing research? Here are some valuable resources to expand your knowledge and skills:

• Books: Check out "Marketing Research" by Naresh K. Malhotra for a comprehensive guide on research methods.
• Online Courses: Platforms like Coursera and edX offer marketing research courses from top universities.
• Industry Reports: Access free reports from sites like Statista or eMarketer for current market trends.
• Webinars: Join live or on-demand webinars from the American Marketing Association for expert insights.
• Tools: Try Google Analytics for web data or SurveyMonkey for easy survey creation.
• Podcasts: Listen to "Marketing Research Radio" for the latest industry discussions.
• Blogs: Follow the Greenbook Blog for cutting-edge research techniques and case studies.

Remember, the key to successful marketing research is staying updated and applying what you learn. 

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10.2 Steps in the Marketing Research Process

Learning objective.

• Describe the basic steps in the marketing research process and the purpose of each step.

The basic steps used to conduct marketing research are shown in Figure 10.6 “Steps in the Marketing Research Process” . Next, we discuss each step.

Figure 10.6 Steps in the Marketing Research Process

Step 1: Define the Problem (or Opportunity)

There’s a saying in marketing research that a problem half defined is a problem half solved. Defining the “problem” of the research sounds simple, doesn’t it? Suppose your product is tutoring other students in a subject you’re a whiz at. You have been tutoring for a while, and people have begun to realize you’re darned good at it. Then, suddenly, your business drops off. Or it explodes, and you can’t cope with the number of students you’re being asked help. If the business has exploded, should you try to expand your services? Perhaps you should subcontract with some other “whiz” students. You would send them students to be tutored, and they would give you a cut of their pay for each student you referred to them.

Both of these scenarios would be a problem for you, wouldn’t they? They are problems insofar as they cause you headaches. But are they really the problem? Or are they the symptoms of something bigger? For example, maybe your business has dropped off because your school is experiencing financial trouble and has lowered the number of scholarships given to incoming freshmen. Consequently, there are fewer total students on campus who need your services. Conversely, if you’re swamped with people who want you to tutor them, perhaps your school awarded more scholarships than usual, so there are a greater number of students who need your services. Alternately, perhaps you ran an ad in your school’s college newspaper, and that led to the influx of students wanting you to tutor them.

Businesses are in the same boat you are as a tutor. They take a look at symptoms and try to drill down to the potential causes. If you approach a marketing research company with either scenario—either too much or too little business—the firm will seek more information from you such as the following:

• In what semester(s) did your tutoring revenues fall (or rise)?
• In what subject areas did your tutoring revenues fall (or rise)?
• In what sales channels did revenues fall (or rise): Were there fewer (or more) referrals from professors or other students? Did the ad you ran result in fewer (or more) referrals this month than in the past months?
• Among what demographic groups did your revenues fall (or rise)—women or men, people with certain majors, or first-year, second-, third-, or fourth-year students?

The key is to look at all potential causes so as to narrow the parameters of the study to the information you actually need to make a good decision about how to fix your business if revenues have dropped or whether or not to expand it if your revenues have exploded.

The next task for the researcher is to put into writing the research objective. The research objective is the goal(s) the research is supposed to accomplish. The marketing research objective for your tutoring business might read as follows:

To survey college professors who teach 100- and 200-level math courses to determine why the number of students referred for tutoring dropped in the second semester.

This is admittedly a simple example designed to help you understand the basic concept. If you take a marketing research course, you will learn that research objectives get a lot more complicated than this. The following is an example:

“To gather information from a sample representative of the U.S. population among those who are ‘very likely’ to purchase an automobile within the next 6 months, which assesses preferences (measured on a 1–5 scale ranging from ‘very likely to buy’ to ‘not likely at all to buy’) for the model diesel at three different price levels. Such data would serve as input into a forecasting model that would forecast unit sales, by geographic regions of the country, for each combination of the model’s different prices and fuel configurations (Burns & Bush, 2010).”

Now do you understand why defining the problem is complicated and half the battle? Many a marketing research effort is doomed from the start because the problem was improperly defined. Coke’s ill-fated decision to change the formula of Coca-Cola in 1985 is a case in point: Pepsi had been creeping up on Coke in terms of market share over the years as well as running a successful promotional campaign called the “Pepsi Challenge,” in which consumers were encouraged to do a blind taste test to see if they agreed that Pepsi was better. Coke spent four years researching “the problem.” Indeed, people seemed to like the taste of Pepsi better in blind taste tests. Thus, the formula for Coke was changed. But the outcry among the public was so great that the new formula didn’t last long—a matter of months—before the old formula was reinstated. Some marketing experts believe Coke incorrectly defined the problem as “How can we beat Pepsi in taste tests?” instead of “How can we gain market share against Pepsi?” (Burns & Bush, 2010)

New Coke Is It! 1985

(click to see video)

This video documents the Coca-Cola Company’s ill-fated launch of New Coke in 1985.

1985 Pepsi Commercial—“They Changed My Coke”

This video shows how Pepsi tried to capitalize on the blunder.

Step 2: Design the Research

The next step in the marketing research process is to do a research design. The research design is your “plan of attack.” It outlines what data you are going to gather and from whom, how and when you will collect the data, and how you will analyze it once it’s been obtained. Let’s look at the data you’re going to gather first.

There are two basic types of data you can gather. The first is primary data. Primary data is information you collect yourself, using hands-on tools such as interviews or surveys, specifically for the research project you’re conducting. Secondary data is data that has already been collected by someone else, or data you have already collected for another purpose. Collecting primary data is more time consuming, work intensive, and expensive than collecting secondary data. Consequently, you should always try to collect secondary data first to solve your research problem, if you can. A great deal of research on a wide variety of topics already exists. If this research contains the answer to your question, there is no need for you to replicate it. Why reinvent the wheel?

Sources of Secondary Data

Your company’s internal records are a source of secondary data. So are any data you collect as part of your marketing intelligence gathering efforts. You can also purchase syndicated research. Syndicated research is primary data that marketing research firms collect on a regular basis and sell to other companies. J.D. Power & Associates is a provider of syndicated research. The company conducts independent, unbiased surveys of customer satisfaction, product quality, and buyer behavior for various industries. The company is best known for its research in the automobile sector. One of the best-known sellers of syndicated research is the Nielsen Company, which produces the Nielsen ratings. The Nielsen ratings measure the size of television, radio, and newspaper audiences in various markets. You have probably read or heard about TV shows that get the highest (Nielsen) ratings. (Arbitron does the same thing for radio ratings.) Nielsen, along with its main competitor, Information Resources, Inc. (IRI), also sells businesses scanner-based research . Scanner-based research is information collected by scanners at checkout stands in stores. Each week Nielsen and IRI collect information on the millions of purchases made at stores. The companies then compile the information and sell it to firms in various industries that subscribe to their services. The Nielsen Company has also recently teamed up with Facebook to collect marketing research information. Via Facebook, users will see surveys in some of the spaces in which they used to see online ads (Rappeport, Gelles, 2009).

By contrast, MarketResearch.com is an example of a marketing research aggregator. A marketing research aggregator is a marketing research company that doesn’t conduct its own research and sell it. Instead, it buys research reports from other marketing research companies and then sells the reports in their entirety or in pieces to other firms. Check out MarketResearch.com’s Web site. As you will see there are a huge number of studies in every category imaginable that you can buy for relatively small amounts of money.

Figure 10.7

Market research aggregators buy research reports from other marketing research companies and then resell them in part or in whole to other companies so they don’t have to gather primary data.

Source: http://www.marketresearch.com .

Your local library is a good place to gather free secondary data. It has searchable databases as well as handbooks, dictionaries, and books, some of which you can access online. Government agencies also collect and report information on demographics, economic and employment data, health information, and balance-of-trade statistics, among a lot of other information. The U.S. Census Bureau collects census data every ten years to gather information about who lives where. Basic demographic information about sex, age, race, and types of housing in which people live in each U.S. state, metropolitan area, and rural area is gathered so that population shifts can be tracked for various purposes, including determining the number of legislators each state should have in the U.S. House of Representatives. For the U.S. government, this is primary data. For marketing managers it is an important source of secondary data.

The Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan also conducts periodic surveys and publishes information about trends in the United States. One research study the center continually conducts is called the “Changing Lives of American Families” ( http://www.isr.umich.edu/home/news/research-update/2007-01.pdf ). This is important research data for marketing managers monitoring consumer trends in the marketplace. The World Bank and the United Nations are two international organizations that collect a great deal of information. Their Web sites contain many free research studies and data related to global markets. Table 10.1 “Examples of Primary Data Sources versus Secondary Data Sources” shows some examples of primary versus secondary data sources.

Table 10.1 Examples of Primary Data Sources versus Secondary Data Sources

Gauging the Quality of Secondary Data

When you are gathering secondary information, it’s always good to be a little skeptical of it. Sometimes studies are commissioned to produce the result a client wants to hear—or wants the public to hear. For example, throughout the twentieth century, numerous studies found that smoking was good for people’s health. The problem was the studies were commissioned by the tobacco industry. Web research can also pose certain hazards. There are many biased sites that try to fool people that they are providing good data. Often the data is favorable to the products they are trying to sell. Beware of product reviews as well. Unscrupulous sellers sometimes get online and create bogus ratings for products. See below for questions you can ask to help gauge the credibility of secondary information.

Gauging the Credibility of Secondary Data: Questions to Ask

• Who gathered this information?
• For what purpose?
• What does the person or organization that gathered the information have to gain by doing so?
• Was the information gathered and reported in a systematic manner?
• Is the source of the information accepted as an authority by other experts in the field?
• Does the article provide objective evidence to support the position presented?

Types of Research Design

Now let’s look specifically at the types of research designs that are utilized. By understanding different types of research designs, a researcher can solve a client’s problems more quickly and efficiently without jumping through more hoops than necessary. Research designs fall into one of the following three categories:

• Exploratory research design
• Descriptive research design
• Causal research design (experiments)

An exploratory research design is useful when you are initially investigating a problem but you haven’t defined it well enough to do an in-depth study of it. Perhaps via your regular market intelligence, you have spotted what appears to be a new opportunity in the marketplace. You would then do exploratory research to investigate it further and “get your feet wet,” as the saying goes. Exploratory research is less structured than other types of research, and secondary data is often utilized.

One form of exploratory research is qualitative research. Qualitative research is any form of research that includes gathering data that is not quantitative, and often involves exploring questions such as why as much as what or how much . Different forms, such as depth interviews and focus group interviews, are common in marketing research.

The depth interview —engaging in detailed, one-on-one, question-and-answer sessions with potential buyers—is an exploratory research technique. However, unlike surveys, the people being interviewed aren’t asked a series of standard questions. Instead the interviewer is armed with some general topics and asks questions that are open ended, meaning that they allow the interviewee to elaborate. “How did you feel about the product after you purchased it?” is an example of a question that might be asked. A depth interview also allows a researcher to ask logical follow-up questions such as “Can you tell me what you mean when you say you felt uncomfortable using the service?” or “Can you give me some examples?” to help dig further and shed additional light on the research problem. Depth interviews can be conducted in person or over the phone. The interviewer either takes notes or records the interview.

Focus groups and case studies are often utilized for exploratory research as well. A focus group is a group of potential buyers who are brought together to discuss a marketing research topic with one another. A moderator is used to focus the discussion, the sessions are recorded, and the main points of consensus are later summarized by the market researcher. Textbook publishers often gather groups of professors at educational conferences to participate in focus groups. However, focus groups can also be conducted on the telephone, in online chat rooms, or both, using meeting software like WebEx. The basic steps of conducting a focus group are outlined below.

The Basic Steps of Conducting a Focus Group

• Establish the objectives of the focus group. What is its purpose?
• Identify the people who will participate in the focus group. What makes them qualified to participate? How many of them will you need and what they will be paid?
• Obtain contact information for the participants and send out invitations (usually e-mails are most efficient).
• Develop a list of questions.
• Choose a facilitator.
• Choose a location in which to hold the focus group and the method by which it will be recorded.
• Conduct the focus group. If the focus group is not conducted electronically, include name tags for the participants, pens and notepads, any materials the participants need to see, and refreshments. Record participants’ responses.
• Summarize the notes from the focus group and write a report for management.

A case study looks at how another company solved the problem that’s being researched. Sometimes multiple cases, or companies, are used in a study. Case studies nonetheless have a mixed reputation. Some researchers believe it’s hard to generalize, or apply, the results of a case study to other companies. Nonetheless, collecting information about companies that encountered the same problems your firm is facing can give you a certain amount of insight about what direction you should take. In fact, one way to begin a research project is to carefully study a successful product or service.

Two other types of qualitative data used for exploratory research are ethnographies and projective techniques. In an ethnography , researchers interview, observe, and often videotape people while they work, live, shop, and play. The Walt Disney Company has recently begun using ethnographers to uncover the likes and dislikes of boys aged six to fourteen, a financially attractive market segment for Disney, but one in which the company has been losing market share. The ethnographers visit the homes of boys, observe the things they have in their rooms to get a sense of their hobbies, and accompany them and their mothers when they shop to see where they go, what the boys are interested in, and what they ultimately buy. (The children get seventy-five dollars out of the deal, incidentally.) (Barnes, 2009)

Projective techniques are used to reveal information research respondents might not reveal by being asked directly. Asking a person to complete sentences such as the following is one technique:

People who buy Coach handbags __________.

(Will he or she reply with “are cool,” “are affluent,” or “are pretentious,” for example?)

KFC’s grilled chicken is ______.

Or the person might be asked to finish a story that presents a certain scenario. Word associations are also used to discern people’s underlying attitudes toward goods and services. Using a word-association technique, a market researcher asks a person to say or write the first word that comes to his or her mind in response to another word. If the initial word is “fast food,” what word does the person associate it with or respond with? Is it “McDonald’s”? If many people reply that way, and you’re conducting research for Burger King, that could indicate Burger King has a problem. However, if the research is being conducted for Wendy’s, which recently began running an advertising campaign to the effect that Wendy’s offerings are “better than fast food,” it could indicate that the campaign is working.

Completing cartoons is yet another type of projective technique. It’s similar to finishing a sentence or story, only with the pictures. People are asked to look at a cartoon such as the one shown in Figure 10.8 “Example of a Cartoon-Completion Projective Technique” . One of the characters in the picture will have made a statement, and the person is asked to fill in the empty cartoon “bubble” with how they think the second character will respond.

Figure 10.8 Example of a Cartoon-Completion Projective Technique

In some cases, your research might end with exploratory research. Perhaps you have discovered your organization lacks the resources needed to produce the product. In other cases, you might decide you need more in-depth, quantitative research such as descriptive research or causal research, which are discussed next. Most marketing research professionals advise using both types of research, if it’s feasible. On the one hand, the qualitative-type research used in exploratory research is often considered too “lightweight.” Remember earlier in the chapter when we discussed telephone answering machines and the hit TV sitcom Seinfeld ? Both product ideas were initially rejected by focus groups. On the other hand, relying solely on quantitative information often results in market research that lacks ideas.

The Stone Wheel—What One Focus Group Said

Watch the video to see a funny spoof on the usefulness—or lack of usefulness—of focus groups.

Descriptive Research

Anything that can be observed and counted falls into the category of descriptive research design. A study using a descriptive research design involves gathering hard numbers, often via surveys, to describe or measure a phenomenon so as to answer the questions of who , what , where , when , and how . “On a scale of 1–5, how satisfied were you with your service?” is a question that illustrates the information a descriptive research design is supposed to capture.

Physiological measurements also fall into the category of descriptive design. Physiological measurements measure people’s involuntary physical responses to marketing stimuli, such as an advertisement. Elsewhere, we explained that researchers have gone so far as to scan the brains of consumers to see what they really think about products versus what they say about them. Eye tracking is another cutting-edge type of physiological measurement. It involves recording the movements of a person’s eyes when they look at some sort of stimulus, such as a banner ad or a Web page. The Walt Disney Company has a research facility in Austin, Texas, that it uses to take physical measurements of viewers when they see Disney programs and advertisements. The facility measures three types of responses: people’s heart rates, skin changes, and eye movements (eye tracking) (Spangler, 2009).

Figure 10.9

A woman shows off her headgear for an eye-tracking study. The gear’s not exactly a fashion statement but . . .

lawrencegs – Google Glass – CC BY 2.0.

A strictly descriptive research design instrument—a survey, for example—can tell you how satisfied your customers are. It can’t, however, tell you why. Nor can an eye-tracking study tell you why people’s eyes tend to dwell on certain types of banner ads—only that they do. To answer “why” questions an exploratory research design or causal research design is needed (Wagner, 2007).

Causal Research

Causal research design examines cause-and-effect relationships. Using a causal research design allows researchers to answer “what if” types of questions. In other words, if a firm changes X (say, a product’s price, design, placement, or advertising), what will happen to Y (say, sales or customer loyalty)? To conduct causal research, the researcher designs an experiment that “controls,” or holds constant, all of a product’s marketing elements except one (or using advanced techniques of research, a few elements can be studied at the same time). The one variable is changed, and the effect is then measured. Sometimes the experiments are conducted in a laboratory using a simulated setting designed to replicate the conditions buyers would experience. Or the experiments may be conducted in a virtual computer setting.

You might think setting up an experiment in a virtual world such as the online game Second Life would be a viable way to conduct controlled marketing research. Some companies have tried to use Second Life for this purpose, but the results have been somewhat mixed as to whether or not it is a good medium for marketing research. The German marketing research firm Komjuniti was one of the first “real-world” companies to set up an “island” in Second Life upon which it could conduct marketing research. However, with so many other attractive fantasy islands in which to play, the company found it difficult to get Second Life residents, or players, to voluntarily visit the island and stay long enough so meaningful research could be conducted. (Plus, the “residents,” or players, in Second Life have been known to protest corporations invading their world. When the German firm Komjuniti created an island in Second Life to conduct marketing research, the residents showed up waving signs and threatening to boycott the island.) (Wagner, 2007)

Why is being able to control the setting so important? Let’s say you are an American flag manufacturer and you are working with Walmart to conduct an experiment to see where in its stores American flags should be placed so as to increase their sales. Then the terrorist attacks of 9/11 occur. In the days afterward, sales skyrocketed—people bought flags no matter where they were displayed. Obviously, the terrorist attacks in the United States would have skewed the experiment’s data.

An experiment conducted in a natural setting such as a store is referred to as a field experiment . Companies sometimes do field experiments either because it is more convenient or because they want to see if buyers will behave the same way in the “real world” as in a laboratory or on a computer. The place the experiment is conducted or the demographic group of people the experiment is administered to is considered the test market . Before a large company rolls out a product to the entire marketplace, it will often place the offering in a test market to see how well it will be received. For example, to compete with MillerCoors’ sixty-four-calorie beer MGD 64, Anheuser-Busch recently began testing its Select 55 beer in certain cities around the country (McWilliams, 2009).

Figure 10.10

Select 55 beer: Coming soon to a test market near you? (If you’re on a diet, you have to hope so!)

Martine – Le champagne – CC BY-NC 2.0.

Many companies use experiments to test all of their marketing communications. For example, the online discount retailer O.co (formerly called Overstock.com) carefully tests all of its marketing offers and tracks the results of each one. One study the company conducted combined twenty-six different variables related to offers e-mailed to several thousand customers. The study resulted in a decision to send a group of e-mails to different segments. The company then tracked the results of the sales generated to see if they were in line with the earlier experiment it had conducted that led it to make the offer.

Step 3: Design the Data-Collection Forms

If the behavior of buyers is being formally observed, and a number of different researchers are conducting observations, the data obviously need to be recorded on a standardized data-collection form that’s either paper or electronic. Otherwise, the data collected will not be comparable. The items on the form could include a shopper’s sex; his or her approximate age; whether the person seemed hurried, moderately hurried, or unhurried; and whether or not he or she read the label on products, used coupons, and so forth.

The same is true when it comes to surveying people with questionnaires. Surveying people is one of the most commonly used techniques to collect quantitative data. Surveys are popular because they can be easily administered to large numbers of people fairly quickly. However, to produce the best results, the questionnaire for the survey needs to be carefully designed.

Questionnaire Design

Most questionnaires follow a similar format: They begin with an introduction describing what the study is for, followed by instructions for completing the questionnaire and, if necessary, returning it to the market researcher. The first few questions that appear on the questionnaire are usually basic, warm-up type of questions the respondent can readily answer, such as the respondent’s age, level of education, place of residence, and so forth. The warm-up questions are then followed by a logical progression of more detailed, in-depth questions that get to the heart of the question being researched. Lastly, the questionnaire wraps up with a statement that thanks the respondent for participating in the survey and information and explains when and how they will be paid for participating. To see some examples of questionnaires and how they are laid out, click on the following link: http://cas.uah.edu/wrenb/mkt343/Project/Sample%20Questionnaires.htm .

How the questions themselves are worded is extremely important. It’s human nature for respondents to want to provide the “correct” answers to the person administering the survey, so as to seem agreeable. Therefore, there is always a hazard that people will try to tell you what you want to hear on a survey. Consequently, care needs to be taken that the survey questions are written in an unbiased, neutral way. In other words, they shouldn’t lead a person taking the questionnaire to answer a question one way or another by virtue of the way you have worded it. The following is an example of a leading question.

Don’t you agree that teachers should be paid more ?

The questions also need to be clear and unambiguous. Consider the following question:

Which brand of toothpaste do you use ?

The question sounds clear enough, but is it really? What if the respondent recently switched brands? What if she uses Crest at home, but while away from home or traveling, she uses Colgate’s Wisp portable toothpaste-and-brush product? How will the respondent answer the question? Rewording the question as follows so it’s more specific will help make the question clearer:

Which brand of toothpaste have you used at home in the past six months? If you have used more than one brand, please list each of them 1 .

Sensitive questions have to be asked carefully. For example, asking a respondent, “Do you consider yourself a light, moderate, or heavy drinker?” can be tricky. Few people want to admit to being heavy drinkers. You can “soften” the question by including a range of answers, as the following example shows:

How many alcoholic beverages do you consume in a week ?

• __0–5 alcoholic beverages
• __5–10 alcoholic beverages
• __10–15 alcoholic beverages

Many people don’t like to answer questions about their income levels. Asking them to specify income ranges rather than divulge their actual incomes can help.

Other research question “don’ts” include using jargon and acronyms that could confuse people. “How often do you IM?” is an example. Also, don’t muddy the waters by asking two questions in the same question, something researchers refer to as a double-barreled question . “Do you think parents should spend more time with their children and/or their teachers?” is an example of a double-barreled question.

Open-ended questions , or questions that ask respondents to elaborate, can be included. However, they are harder to tabulate than closed-ended questions , or questions that limit a respondent’s answers. Multiple-choice and yes-and-no questions are examples of closed-ended questions.

Testing the Questionnaire

You have probably heard the phrase “garbage in, garbage out.” If the questions are bad, the information gathered will be bad, too. One way to make sure you don’t end up with garbage is to test the questionnaire before sending it out to find out if there are any problems with it. Is there enough space for people to elaborate on open-ended questions? Is the font readable? To test the questionnaire, marketing research professionals first administer it to a number of respondents face to face. This gives the respondents the chance to ask the researcher about questions or instructions that are unclear or don’t make sense to them. The researcher then administers the questionnaire to a small subset of respondents in the actual way the survey is going to be disseminated, whether it’s delivered via phone, in person, by mail, or online.

Getting people to participate and complete questionnaires can be difficult. If the questionnaire is too long or hard to read, many people won’t complete it. So, by all means, eliminate any questions that aren’t necessary. Of course, including some sort of monetary incentive for completing the survey can increase the number of completed questionnaires a market researcher will receive.

Step 4: Specify the Sample

Once you have created your questionnaire or other marketing study, how do you figure out who should participate in it? Obviously, you can’t survey or observe all potential buyers in the marketplace. Instead, you must choose a sample. A sample is a subset of potential buyers that are representative of your entire target market, or population being studied. Sometimes market researchers refer to the population as the universe to reflect the fact that it includes the entire target market, whether it consists of a million people, a hundred thousand, a few hundred, or a dozen. “All unmarried people over the age of eighteen who purchased Dirt Devil steam cleaners in the United States during 2011” is an example of a population that has been defined.

Obviously, the population has to be defined correctly. Otherwise, you will be studying the wrong group of people. Not defining the population correctly can result in flawed research, or sampling error. A sampling error is any type of marketing research mistake that results because a sample was utilized. One criticism of Internet surveys is that the people who take these surveys don’t really represent the overall population. On average, Internet survey takers tend to be more educated and tech savvy. Consequently, if they solely constitute your population, even if you screen them for certain criteria, the data you collect could end up being skewed.

The next step is to put together the sampling frame , which is the list from which the sample is drawn. The sampling frame can be put together using a directory, customer list, or membership roster (Wrenn et. al., 2007). Keep in mind that the sampling frame won’t perfectly match the population. Some people will be included on the list who shouldn’t be. Other people who should be included will be inadvertently omitted. It’s no different than if you were to conduct a survey of, say, 25 percent of your friends, using friends’ names you have in your cell phone. Most of your friends’ names are likely to be programmed into your phone, but not all of them. As a result, a certain degree of sampling error always occurs.

There are two main categories of samples in terms of how they are drawn: probability samples and nonprobability samples. A probability sample is one in which each would-be participant has a known and equal chance of being selected. The chance is known because the total number of people in the sampling frame is known. For example, if every other person from the sampling frame were chosen, each person would have a 50 percent chance of being selected.

A nonprobability sample is any type of sample that’s not drawn in a systematic way. So the chances of each would-be participant being selected can’t be known. A convenience sample is one type of nonprobability sample. It is a sample a researcher draws because it’s readily available and convenient to do so. Surveying people on the street as they pass by is an example of a convenience sample. The question is, are these people representative of the target market?

For example, suppose a grocery store needed to quickly conduct some research on shoppers to get ready for an upcoming promotion. Now suppose that the researcher assigned to the project showed up between the hours of 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. on a weekday and surveyed as many shoppers as possible. The problem is that the shoppers wouldn’t be representative of the store’s entire target market. What about commuters who stop at the store before and after work? Their views wouldn’t be represented. Neither would people who work the night shift or shop at odd hours. As a result, there would be a lot of room for sampling error in this study. For this reason, studies that use nonprobability samples aren’t considered as accurate as studies that use probability samples. Nonprobability samples are more often used in exploratory research.

Lastly, the size of the sample has an effect on the amount of sampling error. Larger samples generally produce more accurate results. The larger your sample is, the more data you will have, which will give you a more complete picture of what you’re studying. However, the more people surveyed or studied, the more costly the research becomes.

Statistics can be used to determine a sample’s optimal size. If you take a marketing research or statistics class, you will learn more about how to determine the optimal size.

Of course, if you hire a marketing research company, much of this work will be taken care of for you. Many marketing research companies, like ResearchNow, maintain panels of prescreened people they draw upon for samples. In addition, the marketing research firm will be responsible for collecting the data or contracting with a company that specializes in data collection. Data collection is discussed next.

Step 5: Collect the Data

As we have explained, primary marketing research data can be gathered in a number of ways. Surveys, taking physical measurements, and observing people are just three of the ways we discussed. If you’re observing customers as part of gathering the data, keep in mind that if shoppers are aware of the fact, it can have an effect on their behavior. For example, if a customer shopping for feminine hygiene products in a supermarket aisle realizes she is being watched, she could become embarrassed and leave the aisle, which would adversely affect your data. To get around problems such as these, some companies set up cameras or two-way mirrors to observe customers. Organizations also hire mystery shoppers to work around the problem. A mystery shopper is someone who is paid to shop at a firm’s establishment or one of its competitors to observe the level of service, cleanliness of the facility, and so forth, and report his or her findings to the firm.

Make Extra Money as a Mystery Shopper

Watch the YouTube video to get an idea of how mystery shopping works.

Survey data can be collected in many different ways and combinations of ways. The following are the basic methods used:

• Face-to-face (can be computer aided)
• Telephone (can be computer aided or completely automated)
• Mail and hand delivery
• E-mail and the Web

A face-to-face survey is, of course, administered by a person. The surveys are conducted in public places such as in shopping malls, on the street, or in people’s homes if they have agreed to it. In years past, it was common for researchers in the United States to knock on people’s doors to gather survey data. However, randomly collected door-to-door interviews are less common today, partly because people are afraid of crime and are reluctant to give information to strangers (McDaniel & Gates, 1998).

Nonetheless, “beating the streets” is still a legitimate way questionnaire data is collected. When the U.S. Census Bureau collects data on the nation’s population, it hand delivers questionnaires to rural households that do not have street-name and house-number addresses. And Census Bureau workers personally survey the homeless to collect information about their numbers. Face-to-face surveys are also commonly used in third world countries to collect information from people who cannot read or lack phones and computers.

A plus of face-to-face surveys is that they allow researchers to ask lengthier, more complex questions because the people being surveyed can see and read the questionnaires. The same is true when a computer is utilized. For example, the researcher might ask the respondent to look at a list of ten retail stores and rank the stores from best to worst. The same question wouldn’t work so well over the telephone because the person couldn’t see the list. The question would have to be rewritten. Another drawback with telephone surveys is that even though federal and state “do not call” laws generally don’t prohibit companies from gathering survey information over the phone, people often screen such calls using answering machines and caller ID.

Probably the biggest drawback of both surveys conducted face-to-face and administered over the phone by a person is that they are labor intensive and therefore costly. Mailing out questionnaires is costly, too, and the response rates can be rather low. Think about why that might be so: if you receive a questionnaire in the mail, it is easy to throw it in the trash; it’s harder to tell a market researcher who approaches you on the street that you don’t want to be interviewed.

By contrast, gathering survey data collected by a computer, either over the telephone or on the Internet, can be very cost-effective and in some cases free. SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang are two Web sites that will allow you to create online questionnaires, e-mail them to up to one hundred people for free, and view the responses in real time as they come in. For larger surveys, you have to pay a subscription price of a few hundred dollars. But that still can be extremely cost-effective. The two Web sites also have a host of other features such as online-survey templates you can use to create your questionnaire, a way to set up automatic reminders sent to people who haven’t yet completed their surveys, and tools you can use to create graphics to put in your final research report. To see how easy it is to put together a survey in SurveyMonkey, click on the following link: http://help.surveymonkey.com/app/tutorials/detail/a_id/423 .

Like a face-to-face survey, an Internet survey can enable you to show buyers different visuals such as ads, pictures, and videos of products and their packaging. Web surveys are also fast, which is a major plus. Whereas face-to-face and mailed surveys often take weeks to collect, you can conduct a Web survey in a matter of days or even hours. And, of course, because the information is electronically gathered it can be automatically tabulated. You can also potentially reach a broader geographic group than you could if you had to personally interview people. The Zoomerang Web site allows you to create surveys in forty different languages.

Another plus for Web and computer surveys (and electronic phone surveys) is that there is less room for human error because the surveys are administered electronically. For instance, there’s no risk that the interviewer will ask a question wrong or use a tone of voice that could mislead the respondents. Respondents are also likely to feel more comfortable inputting the information into a computer if a question is sensitive than they would divulging the information to another person face-to-face or over the phone. Given all of these advantages, it’s not surprising that the Internet is quickly becoming the top way to collect primary data. However, like mail surveys, surveys sent to people over the Internet are easy to ignore.

Lastly, before the data collection process begins, the surveyors and observers need to be trained to look for the same things, ask questions the same way, and so forth. If they are using rankings or rating scales, they need to be “on the same page,” so to speak, as to what constitutes a high ranking or a low ranking. As an analogy, you have probably had some teachers grade your college papers harder than others. The goal of training is to avoid a wide disparity between how different observers and interviewers record the data.

Figure 10.11

Training people so they know what constitutes different ratings when they are collecting data will improve the quality of the information gathered in a marketing research study.

Ricardo Rodriquez – Satisfaction survey – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

For example, if an observation form asks the observers to describe whether a shopper’s behavior is hurried, moderately hurried, or unhurried, they should be given an idea of what defines each rating. Does it depend on how much time the person spends in the store or in the individual aisles? How fast they walk? In other words, the criteria and ratings need to be spelled out.

Collecting International Marketing Research Data

Gathering marketing research data in foreign countries poses special challenges. However, that doesn’t stop firms from doing so. Marketing research companies are located all across the globe, in fact. Eight of the ten largest marketing research companies in the world are headquartered in the United States. However, five of these eight firms earn more of their revenues abroad than they do in the United States. There’s a reason for this: many U.S. markets were saturated, or tapped out, long ago in terms of the amount that they can grow. Coke is an example. As you learned earlier in the book, most of the Coca-Cola Company’s revenues are earned in markets abroad. To be sure, the United States is still a huge market when it comes to the revenues marketing research firms generate by conducting research in the country: in terms of their spending, American consumers fuel the world’s economic engine. Still, emerging countries with growing middle classes, such as China, India, and Brazil, are hot new markets companies want to tap.

What kind of challenges do firms face when trying to conduct marketing research abroad? As we explained, face-to-face surveys are commonly used in third world countries to collect information from people who cannot read or lack phones and computers. However, face-to-face surveys are also common in Europe, despite the fact that phones and computers are readily available. In-home surveys are also common in parts of Europe. By contrast, in some countries, including many Asian countries, it’s considered taboo or rude to try to gather information from strangers either face-to-face or over the phone. In many Muslim countries, women are forbidden to talk to strangers.

And how do you figure out whom to research in foreign countries? That in itself is a problem. In the United States, researchers often ask if they can talk to the heads of households to conduct marketing research. But in countries in which domestic servants or employees are common, the heads of households aren’t necessarily the principal shoppers; their domestic employees are (Malhotra).

Translating surveys is also an issue. Have you ever watched the TV comedians Jay Leno and David Letterman make fun of the English translations found on ethnic menus and products? Research tools such as surveys can suffer from the same problem. Hiring someone who is bilingual to translate a survey into another language can be a disaster if the person isn’t a native speaker of the language to which the survey is being translated.

One way companies try to deal with translation problems is by using back translation. When back translation is used, a native speaker translates the survey into the foreign language and then translates it back again to the original language to determine if there were gaps in meaning—that is, if anything was lost in translation. And it’s not just the language that’s an issue. If the research involves any visual images, they, too, could be a point of confusion. Certain colors, shapes, and symbols can have negative connotations in other countries. For example, the color white represents purity in many Western cultures, but in China, it is the color of death and mourning (Zouhali-Worrall, 2008). Also, look back at the cartoon-completion exercise in Figure 10.8 “Example of a Cartoon-Completion Projective Technique” . What would women in Muslim countries who aren’t allowed to converse with male sellers think of it? Chances are, the cartoon wouldn’t provide you with the information you’re seeking if Muslim women in some countries were asked to complete it.

One way marketing research companies are dealing with the complexities of global research is by merging with or acquiring marketing research companies abroad. The Nielsen Company is the largest marketing research company in the world. The firm operates in more than a hundred countries and employs more than forty thousand people. Many of its expansions have been the result of acquisitions and mergers.

Step 6: Analyze the Data

Step 6 involves analyzing the data to ensure it’s as accurate as possible. If the research is collected by hand using a pen and pencil, it’s entered into a computer. Or respondents might have already entered the information directly into a computer. For example, when Toyota goes to an event such as a car show, the automaker’s marketing personnel ask would-be buyers to complete questionnaires directly on computers. Companies are also beginning to experiment with software that can be used to collect data using mobile phones.

Once all the data is collected, the researchers begin the data cleaning , which is the process of removing data that have accidentally been duplicated (entered twice into the computer) or correcting data that have obviously been recorded wrong. A program such as Microsoft Excel or a statistical program such as Predictive Analytics Software (PASW, which was formerly known as SPSS) is then used to tabulate, or calculate, the basic results of the research, such as the total number of participants and how collectively they answered various questions. The programs can also be used to calculate averages, such as the average age of respondents, their average satisfaction, and so forth. The same can done for percentages, and other values you learned about, or will learn about, in a statistics course, such as the standard deviation, mean, and median for each question.

The information generated by the programs can be used to draw conclusions, such as what all customers might like or not like about an offering based on what the sample group liked or did not like. The information can also be used to spot differences among groups of people. For example, the research might show that people in one area of the country like the product better than people in another area. Trends to predict what might happen in the future can also be spotted.

If there are any open-ended questions respondents have elaborated upon—for example, “Explain why you like the current brand you use better than any other brand”—the answers to each are pasted together, one on top of another, so researchers can compare and summarize the information. As we have explained, qualitative information such as this can give you a fuller picture of the results of the research.

Part of analyzing the data is to see if it seems sound. Does the way in which the research was conducted seem sound? Was the sample size large enough? Are the conclusions that become apparent from it reasonable?

The two most commonly used criteria used to test the soundness of a study are (1) validity and (2) reliability. A study is valid if it actually tested what it was designed to test. For example, did the experiment you ran in Second Life test what it was designed to test? Did it reflect what could really happen in the real world? If not, the research isn’t valid. If you were to repeat the study, and get the same results (or nearly the same results), the research is said to be reliable . If you get a drastically different result if you repeat the study, it’s not reliable. The data collected, or at least some it, can also be compared to, or reconciled with, similar data from other sources either gathered by your firm or by another organization to see if the information seems on target.

Stage 7: Write the Research Report and Present Its Findings

If you end up becoming a marketing professional and conducting a research study after you graduate, hopefully you will do a great job putting the study together. You will have defined the problem correctly, chosen the right sample, collected the data accurately, analyzed it, and your findings will be sound. At that point, you will be required to write the research report and perhaps present it to an audience of decision makers. You will do so via a written report and, in some cases, a slide or PowerPoint presentation based on your written report.

The six basic elements of a research report are as follows.

• Title Page . The title page explains what the report is about, when it was conducted and by whom, and who requested it.
• Table of Contents . The table of contents outlines the major parts of the report, as well as any graphs and charts, and the page numbers on which they can be found.
• Executive Summary . The executive summary summarizes all the details in the report in a very quick way. Many people who receive the report—both executives and nonexecutives—won’t have time to read the entire report. Instead, they will rely on the executive summary to quickly get an idea of the study’s results and what to do about those results.

Methodology and Limitations . The methodology section of the report explains the technical details of how the research was designed and conducted. The section explains, for example, how the data was collected and by whom, the size of the sample, how it was chosen, and whom or what it consisted of (e.g., the number of women versus men or children versus adults). It also includes information about the statistical techniques used to analyze the data.

Every study has errors—sampling errors, interviewer errors, and so forth. The methodology section should explain these details, so decision makers can consider their overall impact. The margin of error is the overall tendency of the study to be off kilter—that is, how far it could have gone wrong in either direction. Remember how newscasters present the presidential polls before an election? They always say, “This candidate is ahead 48 to 44 percent, plus or minus 2 percent.” That “plus or minus” is the margin of error. The larger the margin of error is, the less likely the results of the study are accurate. The margin of error needs to be included in the methodology section.

• Findings . The findings section is a longer, fleshed-out version of the executive summary that goes into more detail about the statistics uncovered by the research that bolster the study’s findings. If you have related research or secondary data on hand that back up the findings, it can be included to help show the study did what it was designed to do.
• Recommendations . The recommendations section should outline the course of action you think should be taken based on the findings of the research and the purpose of the project. For example, if you conducted a global market research study to identify new locations for stores, make a recommendation for the locations (Mersdorf, 2009).

As we have said, these are the basic sections of a marketing research report. However, additional sections can be added as needed. For example, you might need to add a section on the competition and each firm’s market share. If you’re trying to decide on different supply chain options, you will need to include a section on that topic.

As you write the research report, keep your audience in mind. Don’t use technical jargon decision makers and other people reading the report won’t understand. If technical terms must be used, explain them. Also, proofread the document to ferret out any grammatical errors and typos, and ask a couple of other people to proofread behind you to catch any mistakes you might have missed. If your research report is riddled with errors, its credibility will be undermined, even if the findings and recommendations you make are extremely accurate.

Many research reports are presented via PowerPoint. If you’re asked to create a slideshow presentation from the report, don’t try to include every detail in the report on the slides. The information will be too long and tedious for people attending the presentation to read through. And if they do go to the trouble of reading all the information, they probably won’t be listening to the speaker who is making the presentation.

Instead of including all the information from the study in the slides, boil each section of the report down to key points and add some “talking points” only the presenter will see. After or during the presentation, you can give the attendees the longer, paper version of the report so they can read the details at a convenient time, if they choose to.

Key Takeaway

Step 1 in the marketing research process is to define the problem. Businesses take a look at what they believe are symptoms and try to drill down to the potential causes so as to precisely define the problem. The next task for the researcher is to put into writing the research objective, or goal, the research is supposed to accomplish. Step 2 in the process is to design the research. The research design is the “plan of attack.” It outlines what data you are going to gather, from whom, how, and when, and how you’re going to analyze it once it has been obtained. Step 3 is to design the data-collection forms, which need to be standardized so the information gathered on each is comparable. Surveys are a popular way to gather data because they can be easily administered to large numbers of people fairly quickly. However, to produce the best results, survey questionnaires need to be carefully designed and pretested before they are used. Step 4 is drawing the sample, or a subset of potential buyers who are representative of your entire target market. If the sample is not correctly selected, the research will be flawed. Step 5 is to actually collect the data, whether it’s collected by a person face-to-face, over the phone, or with the help of computers or the Internet. The data-collection process is often different in foreign countries. Step 6 is to analyze the data collected for any obvious errors, tabulate the data, and then draw conclusions from it based on the results. The last step in the process, Step 7, is writing the research report and presenting the findings to decision makers.

Review Questions

• Explain why it’s important to carefully define the problem or opportunity a marketing research study is designed to investigate.
• Describe the different types of problems that can occur when marketing research professionals develop questions for surveys.
• How does a probability sample differ from a nonprobability sample?
• What makes a marketing research study valid? What makes a marketing research study reliable?
• What sections should be included in a marketing research report? What is each section designed to do?

1 “Questionnaire Design,” QuickMBA , http://www.quickmba.com/marketing/research/qdesign (accessed December 14, 2009).

Barnes, B., “Disney Expert Uses Science to Draw Boy Viewers,” New York Times , April 15, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/arts/television/14boys.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1 (accessed December 14, 2009).

Burns A. and Ronald Bush, Marketing Research , 6th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2010), 85.

Malhotra, N., Marketing Research: An Applied Approach , 6th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall), 764.

McDaniel, C. D. and Roger H. Gates, Marketing Research Essentials , 2nd ed. (Cincinnati: South-Western College Publishing, 1998), 61.

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Principles of Marketing Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Make informed decisions with the marketing research process

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Who is your target consumer? What does their buying journey look like? How should you price your new product or service?  

Today’s business markets are complex and rapidly evolving. So when answering questions like these, you can’t afford to guess. You need data. 

That’s where the marketing research process comes in. 

The marketing research process encompasses a number of activities focused on gathering product and consumer data to understand your target customers, validate new product ideas, iterate on existing products, and improve marketing and business decisions.  

If you want to understand your customer and set your products and marketing strategies up for success, you need marketing research. But where should you begin? And how can you ensure your efforts lead to actionable insights?

Below we’ll walk you through the 5 main marketing research steps. 

What is the marketing research process?

The marketing research process is a series of steps used to plan and conduct research on your target market. This process starts before the research ever begins, and it covers everything needed to make research effective, from planning to conducting to analyzing—all the way to finally presenting the results.

As much as we might want to believe our instincts are always right, that’s simply not the case. Research may back up your gut feeling, but it often reveals new, unexpected facts as well. The marketing research process helps you get all the information you need to make and justify a choice–and even gain a competitive edge.

Types of marketing research

There are multiple ways to conduct marketing research, depending on the question you’re trying to answer or the problem you’re trying to solve. Some marketing research process examples include: 

• Customer interviews
• Focus groups
• Competitive analysis
• Surveys or questionnaires
• Observation

Which method you should choose will depend on your objectives.

Benefits of doing market research

In 2018, less than 40% of marketers used consumer research to drive decisions. By 2021, 60% of marketers said they use customer data the majority of the time when making decisions. 

Why the jump? Marketers have realized the significant value of the marketing research process and are using it to improve their decision making across the business. 

Market research is powerful because it can help solve real problems. The marketing research process helps leaders answer questions and gain insight into their business, such as:  

• Why do customers buy certain products or behave a certain way
• What problems do customers have and what pain points the business can address
• What’s trending in the industry and what the competitive landscape looks like
• The level of demand for a type of product or service
• Customer perceptions or opinions on pricing
• Untapped opportunities for product development or marketing  

Bottom line? The marketing research process helps your bottom line. 

When you understand customer behavior and needs, the market landscape, and your own product performance, you can make better, strategic decisions that drive the business forward.

5 marketing research process steps

There are five basic steps to the marketing research process. The specific execution of these steps will vary based on your company’s specific needs and capabilities, but the outline below provides a good starting point.

1. Define the problem

In this initial step, determine why you need to conduct research in the first place. Once you’ve defined why you need research, decide what kind of information you need and how your team will use that information. This will make it easy to design an appropriate research plan in the next step.

For example, let’s say the business is seeing a drop in sales on one product. Your research question could be “Why are sales for product A dropping?” There could be a few reasons, such as loss of customer interest based on product performance or industry competition. Your marketing research can then be designed around investigating those possibilities.

Pro tip: Consult with decision-makers in your company. You’ll want to be sure that your marketing research adequately addresses their concerns and gives them the information they need to make a decision. Work with them to determine any specific metrics they’ll use to make their decision so you can tailor your research process to include their needs.

2. Develop a research plan

Next, begin outlining your research approach. Develop a hypothesis, and then determine how you will conduct research. There are many ways to gather data, including surveys and focus groups, so it’s important to choose a method that will give you the information you need from the people you care about.

• Your target audience
• The research tools you will use
• Who will be involved in the research process (e.g., customers, internal staff, or both?)
• How you will select research participants
• Your research timeline
• Project resources

If you’re conducting a survey, interviews, or focus group, consider how you will incentivize participants, what kinds of questions you will ask, and how to collect the responses.

3. Collect data

With a research plan in place, you can begin conducting your research. As you do so, ensure that everyone involved in collecting data has received training to do so effectively. You’ll want to supervise and evaluate their efforts throughout the research process to ensure you get quality data.

Make sure to collect and record data in a secure place, preferably using a standardized format, to ensure you have accurate, usable data.

4. Analyze data

As your research concludes, begin data analysis . This step includes editing, coding, or transcribing data as needed to make it readable and manipulatable. Data analysis can take many forms, but it often includes making graphs and tables to spot trends. Remember, your analysis should reveal whether your hypothesis established in step two was correct.

5. Prepare a report

The marketing research process concludes with a presentation of your research. Generally, this takes the form of a written report that includes the initial problem, an outline of the research, and recommendations for how to proceed. This step can also take the form of oral reports or presentations—anything that communicates your research clearly.

However you present this information, make your report clear and understandable for any individuals who weren’t directly involved in the research process. Give them all the information necessary for decision-making. At this point, your company can take action based on your findings, thus concluding the marketing research process.

Lucidchart and the marketing research process

One size does not fit all when it comes to the marketing research process. While the basic steps are applicable to most organizations, they will often be executed very differently. Your organization needs to personalize your process, and Lucidchart makes it easy to do so.

For example, the formality of the marketing research process varies from company to company. Smaller businesses might conduct casual research with a Google survey. A large company, however, might require carefully selected focus groups and formal questionnaires. With Lucidchart, you can customize your marketing research process to fit your organization’s needs.

Marketing research can play a key role in making the right decisions for your company. Developing your own marketing research process will help you achieve even better results from your data collection and analysis, in turn helping you make more informed choices.

Define your marketing research process today with Lucidchart.

About Lucidchart

Lucidchart, a cloud-based intelligent diagramming application, is a core component of Lucid Software's Visual Collaboration Suite. This intuitive, cloud-based solution empowers teams to collaborate in real-time to build flowcharts, mockups, UML diagrams, customer journey maps, and more. Lucidchart propels teams forward to build the future faster. Lucid is proud to serve top businesses around the world, including customers such as Google, GE, and NBC Universal, and 99% of the Fortune 500. Lucid partners with industry leaders, including Google, Atlassian, and Microsoft. Since its founding, Lucid has received numerous awards for its products, business, and workplace culture. For more information, visit lucidchart.com.

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How to Do Market Research: The Complete Guide

Learn how to do market research with this step-by-step guide, complete with templates, tools and real-world examples.

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Get trusted first-party funding data, revenue data and firmographics

Market research is the systematic process of gathering, analyzing and interpreting information about a specific market or industry.

What are your customers’ needs? How does your product compare to the competition? What are the emerging trends and opportunities in your industry? If these questions keep you up at night, it’s time to conduct market research.

Market research plays a pivotal role in your ability to stay competitive and relevant, helping you anticipate shifts in consumer behavior and industry dynamics. It involves gathering these insights using a wide range of techniques, from surveys and interviews to data analysis and observational studies.

In this guide, we’ll explore why market research is crucial, the various types of market research, the methods used in data collection, and how to effectively conduct market research to drive informed decision-making and success.

What is market research?

The purpose of market research is to offer valuable insight into the preferences and behaviors of your target audience, and anticipate shifts in market trends and the competitive landscape. This information helps you make data-driven decisions, develop effective strategies for your business, and maximize your chances of long-term growth.

Why is market research important? 

By understanding the significance of market research, you can make sure you’re asking the right questions and using the process to your advantage. Some of the benefits of market research include:

• Informed decision-making: Market research provides you with the data and insights you need to make smart decisions for your business. It helps you identify opportunities, assess risks and tailor your strategies to meet the demands of the market. Without market research, decisions are often based on assumptions or guesswork, leading to costly mistakes.
• Customer-centric approach: A cornerstone of market research involves developing a deep understanding of customer needs and preferences. This gives you valuable insights into your target audience, helping you develop products, services and marketing campaigns that resonate with your customers.
• Competitive advantage: By conducting market research, you’ll gain a competitive edge. You’ll be able to identify gaps in the market, analyze competitor strengths and weaknesses, and position your business strategically. This enables you to create unique value propositions, differentiate yourself from competitors, and seize opportunities that others may overlook.
• Risk mitigation: Market research helps you anticipate market shifts and potential challenges. By identifying threats early, you can proactively adjust their strategies to mitigate risks and respond effectively to changing circumstances. This proactive approach is particularly valuable in volatile industries.
• Resource optimization: Conducting market research allows organizations to allocate their time, money and resources more efficiently. It ensures that investments are made in areas with the highest potential return on investment, reducing wasted resources and improving overall business performance.
• Adaptation to market trends: Markets evolve rapidly, driven by technological advancements, cultural shifts and changing consumer attitudes. Market research ensures that you stay ahead of these trends and adapt your offerings accordingly so you can avoid becoming obsolete. 

As you can see, market research empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions, cater to customer needs, outperform competitors, mitigate risks, optimize resources and stay agile in a dynamic marketplace. These benefits make it a huge industry; the global market research services market is expected to grow from $76.37 billion in 2021 to $108.57 billion in 2026 . Now, let’s dig into the different types of market research that can help you achieve these benefits.

Types of market research 

• Qualitative research
• Quantitative research
• Exploratory research
• Descriptive research
• Causal research
• Cross-sectional research
• Longitudinal research

Despite its advantages, 23% of organizations don’t have a clear market research strategy. Part of developing a strategy involves choosing the right type of market research for your business goals. The most commonly used approaches include:

1. Qualitative research

Qualitative research focuses on understanding the underlying motivations, attitudes and perceptions of individuals or groups. It is typically conducted through techniques like in-depth interviews, focus groups and content analysis — methods we’ll discuss further in the sections below. Qualitative research provides rich, nuanced insights that can inform product development, marketing strategies and brand positioning.

2. Quantitative research

Quantitative research, in contrast to qualitative research, involves the collection and analysis of numerical data, often through surveys, experiments and structured questionnaires. This approach allows for statistical analysis and the measurement of trends, making it suitable for large-scale market studies and hypothesis testing. While it’s worthwhile using a mix of qualitative and quantitative research, most businesses prioritize the latter because it is scientific, measurable and easily replicated across different experiments.

3. Exploratory research

Whether you’re conducting qualitative or quantitative research or a mix of both, exploratory research is often the first step. Its primary goal is to help you understand a market or problem so you can gain insights and identify potential issues or opportunities. This type of market research is less structured and is typically conducted through open-ended interviews, focus groups or secondary data analysis. Exploratory research is valuable when entering new markets or exploring new product ideas.

4. Descriptive research

As its name implies, descriptive research seeks to describe a market, population or phenomenon in detail. It involves collecting and summarizing data to answer questions about audience demographics and behaviors, market size, and current trends. Surveys, observational studies and content analysis are common methods used in descriptive research. 

5. Causal research

Causal research aims to establish cause-and-effect relationships between variables. It investigates whether changes in one variable result in changes in another. Experimental designs, A/B testing and regression analysis are common causal research methods. This sheds light on how specific marketing strategies or product changes impact consumer behavior.

6. Cross-sectional research

Cross-sectional market research involves collecting data from a sample of the population at a single point in time. It is used to analyze differences, relationships or trends among various groups within a population. Cross-sectional studies are helpful for market segmentation, identifying target audiences and assessing market trends at a specific moment.

7. Longitudinal research

Longitudinal research, in contrast to cross-sectional research, collects data from the same subjects over an extended period. This allows for the analysis of trends, changes and developments over time. Longitudinal studies are useful for tracking long-term developments in consumer preferences, brand loyalty and market dynamics.

Each type of market research has its strengths and weaknesses, and the method you choose depends on your specific research goals and the depth of understanding you’re aiming to achieve. In the following sections, we’ll delve into primary and secondary research approaches and specific research methods.

Primary vs. secondary market research

Market research of all types can be broadly categorized into two main approaches: primary research and secondary research. By understanding the differences between these approaches, you can better determine the most appropriate research method for your specific goals.

Primary market research 

Primary research involves the collection of original data straight from the source. Typically, this involves communicating directly with your target audience — through surveys, interviews, focus groups and more — to gather information. Here are some key attributes of primary market research:

• Customized data: Primary research provides data that is tailored to your research needs. You design a custom research study and gather information specific to your goals.
• Up-to-date insights: Because primary research involves communicating with customers, the data you collect reflects the most current market conditions and consumer behaviors.
• Time-consuming and resource-intensive: Despite its advantages, primary research can be labor-intensive and costly, especially when dealing with large sample sizes or complex study designs. Whether you hire a market research consultant, agency or use an in-house team, primary research studies consume a large amount of resources and time.

Secondary market research 

Secondary research, on the other hand, involves analyzing data that has already been compiled by third-party sources, such as online research tools, databases, news sites, industry reports and academic studies.

Here are the main characteristics of secondary market research:

• Cost-effective: Secondary research is generally more cost-effective than primary research since it doesn’t require building a research plan from scratch. You and your team can look at databases, websites and publications on an ongoing basis, without needing to design a custom experiment or hire a consultant. 
• Leverages multiple sources: Data tools and software extract data from multiple places across the web, and then consolidate that information within a single platform. This means you’ll get a greater amount of data and a wider scope from secondary research.
• Quick to access: You can access a wide range of information rapidly — often in seconds — if you’re using online research tools and databases. Because of this, you can act on insights sooner, rather than taking the time to develop an experiment. 

So, when should you use primary vs. secondary research? In practice, many market research projects incorporate both primary and secondary research to take advantage of the strengths of each approach.

One rule of thumb is to focus on secondary research to obtain background information, market trends or industry benchmarks. It is especially valuable for conducting preliminary research, competitor analysis, or when time and budget constraints are tight. Then, if you still have knowledge gaps or need to answer specific questions unique to your business model, use primary research to create a custom experiment. 

Market research methods

• Surveys and questionnaires
• Focus groups
• Observational research
• Online research tools
• Experiments
• Content analysis
• Ethnographic research

How do primary and secondary research approaches translate into specific research methods? Let’s take a look at the different ways you can gather data: 

1. Surveys and questionnaires

Surveys and questionnaires are popular methods for collecting structured data from a large number of respondents. They involve a set of predetermined questions that participants answer. Surveys can be conducted through various channels, including online tools, telephone interviews and in-person or online questionnaires. They are useful for gathering quantitative data and assessing customer demographics, opinions, preferences and needs. On average, customer surveys have a 33% response rate , so keep that in mind as you consider your sample size.

2. Interviews

Interviews are in-depth conversations with individuals or groups to gather qualitative insights. They can be structured (with predefined questions) or unstructured (with open-ended discussions). Interviews are valuable for exploring complex topics, uncovering motivations and obtaining detailed feedback. 

3. Focus groups

The most common primary research methods are in-depth webcam interviews and focus groups. Focus groups are a small gathering of participants who discuss a specific topic or product under the guidance of a moderator. These discussions are valuable for primary market research because they reveal insights into consumer attitudes, perceptions and emotions. Focus groups are especially useful for idea generation, concept testing and understanding group dynamics within your target audience.

4. Observational research

Observational research involves observing and recording participant behavior in a natural setting. This method is particularly valuable when studying consumer behavior in physical spaces, such as retail stores or public places. In some types of observational research, participants are aware you’re watching them; in other cases, you discreetly watch consumers without their knowledge, as they use your product. Either way, observational research provides firsthand insights into how people interact with products or environments.

5. Online research tools

You and your team can do your own secondary market research using online tools. These tools include data prospecting platforms and databases, as well as online surveys, social media listening, web analytics and sentiment analysis platforms. They help you gather data from online sources, monitor industry trends, track competitors, understand consumer preferences and keep tabs on online behavior. We’ll talk more about choosing the right market research tools in the sections that follow.

6. Experiments

Market research experiments are controlled tests of variables to determine causal relationships. While experiments are often associated with scientific research, they are also used in market research to assess the impact of specific marketing strategies, product features, or pricing and packaging changes.

7. Content analysis

Content analysis involves the systematic examination of textual, visual or audio content to identify patterns, themes and trends. It’s commonly applied to customer reviews, social media posts and other forms of online content to analyze consumer opinions and sentiments.

8. Ethnographic research

Ethnographic research immerses researchers into the daily lives of consumers to understand their behavior and culture. This method is particularly valuable when studying niche markets or exploring the cultural context of consumer choices.

How to do market research

• Set clear objectives
• Identify your target audience
• Choose your research methods
• Use the right market research tools
• Collect data
• Analyze data 
• Interpret your findings
• Identify opportunities and challenges
• Make informed business decisions
• Monitor and adapt

Now that you have gained insights into the various market research methods at your disposal, let’s delve into the practical aspects of how to conduct market research effectively. Here’s a quick step-by-step overview, from defining objectives to monitoring market shifts.

1. Set clear objectives

When you set clear and specific goals, you’re essentially creating a compass to guide your research questions and methodology. Start by precisely defining what you want to achieve. Are you launching a new product and want to understand its viability in the market? Are you evaluating customer satisfaction with a product redesign? 

Start by creating SMART goals — objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Not only will this clarify your research focus from the outset, but it will also help you track progress and benchmark your success throughout the process. 

You should also consult with key stakeholders and team members to ensure alignment on your research objectives before diving into data collecting. This will help you gain diverse perspectives and insights that will shape your research approach.

2. Identify your target audience

Next, you’ll need to pinpoint your target audience to determine who should be included in your research. Begin by creating detailed buyer personas or stakeholder profiles. Consider demographic factors like age, gender, income and location, but also delve into psychographics, such as interests, values and pain points.

The more specific your target audience, the more accurate and actionable your research will be. Additionally, segment your audience if your research objectives involve studying different groups, such as current customers and potential leads.

If you already have existing customers, you can also hold conversations with them to better understand your target market. From there, you can refine your buyer personas and tailor your research methods accordingly.

3. Choose your research methods

Selecting the right research methods is crucial for gathering high-quality data. Start by considering the nature of your research objectives. If you’re exploring consumer preferences, surveys and interviews can provide valuable insights. For in-depth understanding, focus groups or observational research might be suitable. Consider using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to gain a well-rounded perspective. 

You’ll also need to consider your budget. Think about what you can realistically achieve using the time and resources available to you. If you have a fairly generous budget, you may want to try a mix of primary and secondary research approaches. If you’re doing market research for a startup , on the other hand, chances are your budget is somewhat limited. If that’s the case, try addressing your goals with secondary research tools before investing time and effort in a primary research study. 

4. Use the right market research tools

Whether you’re conducting primary or secondary research, you’ll need to choose the right tools. These can help you do anything from sending surveys to customers to monitoring trends and analyzing data. Here are some examples of popular market research tools:

• Market research software: Crunchbase is a platform that provides best-in-class company data, making it valuable for market research on growing companies and industries. You can use Crunchbase to access trusted, first-party funding data, revenue data, news and firmographics, enabling you to monitor industry trends and understand customer needs.

• Survey and questionnaire tools: SurveyMonkey is a widely used online survey platform that allows you to create, distribute and analyze surveys. Google Forms is a free tool that lets you create surveys and collect responses through Google Drive.
• Data analysis software: Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets are useful for conducting statistical analyses. SPSS is a powerful statistical analysis software used for data processing, analysis and reporting.
• Social listening tools: Brandwatch is a social listening and analytics platform that helps you monitor social media conversations, track sentiment and analyze trends. Mention is a media monitoring tool that allows you to track mentions of your brand, competitors and keywords across various online sources.
• Data visualization platforms: Tableau is a data visualization tool that helps you create interactive and shareable dashboards and reports. Power BI by Microsoft is a business analytics tool for creating interactive visualizations and reports.

5. Collect data

There’s an infinite amount of data you could be collecting using these tools, so you’ll need to be intentional about going after the data that aligns with your research goals. Implement your chosen research methods, whether it’s distributing surveys, conducting interviews or pulling from secondary research platforms. Pay close attention to data quality and accuracy, and stick to a standardized process to streamline data capture and reduce errors. 

6. Analyze data

Once data is collected, you’ll need to analyze it systematically. Use statistical software or analysis tools to identify patterns, trends and correlations. For qualitative data, employ thematic analysis to extract common themes and insights. Visualize your findings with charts, graphs and tables to make complex data more understandable.

If you’re not proficient in data analysis, consider outsourcing or collaborating with a data analyst who can assist in processing and interpreting your data accurately.

7. Interpret your findings

Interpreting your market research findings involves understanding what the data means in the context of your objectives. Are there significant trends that uncover the answers to your initial research questions? Consider the implications of your findings on your business strategy. It’s essential to move beyond raw data and extract actionable insights that inform decision-making.

Hold a cross-functional meeting or workshop with relevant team members to collectively interpret the findings. Different perspectives can lead to more comprehensive insights and innovative solutions.

8. Identify opportunities and challenges

Use your research findings to identify potential growth opportunities and challenges within your market. What segments of your audience are underserved or overlooked? Are there emerging trends you can capitalize on? Conversely, what obstacles or competitors could hinder your progress?

Lay out this information in a clear and organized way by conducting a SWOT analysis, which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Jot down notes for each of these areas to provide a structured overview of gaps and hurdles in the market.

9. Make informed business decisions

Market research is only valuable if it leads to informed decisions for your company. Based on your insights, devise actionable strategies and initiatives that align with your research objectives. Whether it’s refining your product, targeting new customer segments or adjusting pricing, ensure your decisions are rooted in the data.

At this point, it’s also crucial to keep your team aligned and accountable. Create an action plan that outlines specific steps, responsibilities and timelines for implementing the recommendations derived from your research. 

10. Monitor and adapt

Market research isn’t a one-time activity; it’s an ongoing process. Continuously monitor market conditions, customer behaviors and industry trends. Set up mechanisms to collect real-time data and feedback. As you gather new information, be prepared to adapt your strategies and tactics accordingly. Regularly revisiting your research ensures your business remains agile and reflects changing market dynamics and consumer preferences.

Online market research sources

As you go through the steps above, you’ll want to turn to trusted, reputable sources to gather your data. Here’s a list to get you started:

• Crunchbase: As mentioned above, Crunchbase is an online platform with an extensive dataset, allowing you to access in-depth insights on market trends, consumer behavior and competitive analysis. You can also customize your search options to tailor your research to specific industries, geographic regions or customer personas.

• Academic databases: Academic databases, such as ProQuest and JSTOR , are treasure troves of scholarly research papers, studies and academic journals. They offer in-depth analyses of various subjects, including market trends, consumer preferences and industry-specific insights. Researchers can access a wealth of peer-reviewed publications to gain a deeper understanding of their research topics.
• Government and NGO databases: Government agencies, nongovernmental organizations and other institutions frequently maintain databases containing valuable economic, demographic and industry-related data. These sources offer credible statistics and reports on a wide range of topics, making them essential for market researchers. Examples include the U.S. Census Bureau , the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Pew Research Center .
• Industry reports: Industry reports and market studies are comprehensive documents prepared by research firms, industry associations and consulting companies. They provide in-depth insights into specific markets, including market size, trends, competitive analysis and consumer behavior. You can find this information by looking at relevant industry association databases; examples include the American Marketing Association and the National Retail Federation .
• Social media and online communities: Social media platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter (X) , forums such as Reddit and Quora , and review platforms such as G2 can provide real-time insights into consumer sentiment, opinions and trends. 

Market research examples

At this point, you have market research tools and data sources — but how do you act on the data you gather? Let’s go over some real-world examples that illustrate the practical application of market research across various industries. These examples showcase how market research can lead to smart decision-making and successful business decisions.

Example 1: Apple’s iPhone launch

Apple ’s iconic iPhone launch in 2007 serves as a prime example of market research driving product innovation in tech. Before the iPhone’s release, Apple conducted extensive market research to understand consumer preferences, pain points and unmet needs in the mobile phone industry. This research led to the development of a touchscreen smartphone with a user-friendly interface, addressing consumer demands for a more intuitive and versatile device. The result was a revolutionary product that disrupted the market and redefined the smartphone industry.

Example 2: McDonald’s global expansion

McDonald’s successful global expansion strategy demonstrates the importance of market research when expanding into new territories. Before entering a new market, McDonald’s conducts thorough research to understand local tastes, preferences and cultural nuances. This research informs menu customization, marketing strategies and store design. For instance, in India, McDonald’s offers a menu tailored to local preferences, including vegetarian options. This market-specific approach has enabled McDonald’s to adapt and thrive in diverse global markets.

Example 3: Organic and sustainable farming

The shift toward organic and sustainable farming practices in the food industry is driven by market research that indicates increased consumer demand for healthier and environmentally friendly food options. As a result, food producers and retailers invest in sustainable sourcing and organic product lines — such as with these sustainable seafood startups — to align with this shift in consumer values. 

The bottom line? Market research has multiple use cases and is a critical practice for any industry. Whether it’s launching groundbreaking products, entering new markets or responding to changing consumer preferences, you can use market research to shape successful strategies and outcomes.

Market research templates

You finally have a strong understanding of how to do market research and apply it in the real world. Before we wrap up, here are some market research templates that you can use as a starting point for your projects:

• Smartsheet competitive analysis templates : These spreadsheets can serve as a framework for gathering information about the competitive landscape and obtaining valuable lessons to apply to your business strategy.
• SurveyMonkey product survey template : Customize the questions on this survey based on what you want to learn from your target customers.
• HubSpot templates : HubSpot offers a wide range of free templates you can use for market research, business planning and more.
• SCORE templates : SCORE is a nonprofit organization that provides templates for business plans, market analysis and financial projections.
• SBA.gov : The U.S. Small Business Administration offers templates for every aspect of your business, including market research, and is particularly valuable for new startups. 

Strengthen your business with market research

When conducted effectively, market research is like a guiding star. Equipped with the right tools and techniques, you can uncover valuable insights, stay competitive, foster innovation and navigate the complexities of your industry.

Throughout this guide, we’ve discussed the definition of market research, different research methods, and how to conduct it effectively. We’ve also explored various types of market research and shared practical insights and templates for getting started. 

Now, it’s time to start the research process. Trust in data, listen to the market and make informed decisions that guide your company toward lasting success.

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Home Market Research

Marketing research: Definition, steps, uses & advantages

What is marketing research?

Marketing research is defined as any technique or a set of practices that companies use to collect information to understand their target market better. Organizations use this data to improve their products, enhance their UX, and offer a better product to their customers. Marketing research is used to determine what the customers want, and how they react to products or features of a product.

Gather research insights

Four standard marketing research methods

The four most common marketing research methods are surveys, interviews, customer observations, and focus groups. You can research various ways without limiting yourself to just one way. Let’s dive deeper into each of these marketing research techniques.

Researchers collect responses by deploying surveys and managing data via online questionnaires or on-screen surveys at the POS. These surveys contain closed-ended and open-ended questions. They are popular and are the most widely used research techniques.

Why are online surveys popular?

Surveys are inexpensive, simple to set-up, deploy, and gather responses. It gets easy to collect multiple answers from a tailored audience group using surveys. Researchers rely on quantitative data, and online surveys provide quick responses compared to the more traditional offline methods. You can collect large amounts of data within minutes from anywhere in the world.

2. Interviews

Face-to-face or personal interviews are a more traditional way of doing marketing research. It is a slow and more expensive way of collecting responses. Researchers doing large scale marketing research do not prefer this method to collect a large number of responses. Interviews are conducted both in-person and on the telephone (CATI). 

Why are interviews important?

Personal interviews may not be widely used but play a significant role in understanding precisely what the respondent feels. You can record more than just verbal responses and understand the customer better. Often, when two humans interact with each other, more information is shared because of the dialogue. Personal interviews are useful in small-scale studies, where the researcher wants to interview a specific group of local respondents. CATI’s are helpful when the respondent base is more expansive.

3. Focus groups

Focus groups or online focus groups involve several respondents who participate in discussions about a particular topic. A researcher conducts focus groups to obtain richer information. The main reason for a focus group is to hold a dialogue between various people on a particular topic of interest. Unlike interviews, focus group members are allowed to interact with each other and influence one another.

Why are focus groups impactful?

It is no secret that focus groups are hugely impactful in decision making. Researchers gain a lot of information by organizing focus groups. Often, focus groups bring up issues not foreseen by researchers. Online or video focus groups have a broad reach, and many organizations have now started creating and nurturing research communities for better respondent handling and data gathering. Direct interaction of business groups and customers positively impacts users because they feel that their voices are heard.

4. Observation

Observation, though not popular and widely used, gives intuitive feedback. Research companies organize customer observation sessions to gather information on how they engage with the product or service (or a similar competitor product or service). Feedback from people’s behavioral attitudes is a powerful tool for researchers looking to improve their products and services.

What makes observation so powerful?

Observational market research is an excellent alternative to focus groups. It’s not only an inexpensive research tool, but you will also witness people interacting with and using your product in a natural environment. The downside is that you will have to make inferences about their feelings and reactions.

LEARN ABOUT: market research trends

How to conduct marketing research

Follow these four marketing research steps to help you understand what your users think and feel about your product, service, or business.

LEARN ABOUT: Behavioral Research

1. Create simple user personas

A user persona is nothing more than a fictional character that represents a user or a customer. Understanding user personas will help you gauge how different persons react to other products and services to understand their needs. To create a persona, your questions must answer these types questions about the user or customer:

• Who are they?
• What’s their primary goal?
• What stops them from achieving that goal?

2. Conduct observational research

Use both overt and covert observation methods to observe and take notes while users use your products or a similar one.

Overt vs. covert observation

• Overt observation asks users if they will allow you to watch them use your product. 
• Covert observation studies users in a natural environment without them knowing. This type of observation generally works only if you sell a product that consumers buy and use regularly. It brings in the purest observational research data as people act naturally while using the products. 

3. Conduct personal interviews

One-on-one conversations with your target population allow you to explore and dig deep into their concerns, revealing answers to many questions. Here are a few tips for conducting personal interviews.

• Be a journalist and not a salesperson. Ask users about their frustrations, needs, and areas where they think they need an improvement in the product. 
• Pose the ‘why’ question to dig deeper. Dive into the details to know more about their past behavior.
• Recording the conversation helps you focus on it rather than take notes simultaneously.

4. Analyze the data

The idea of conducting lean marketing research is to receive quick, actionable insight data. Analyze the information you have collected using various techniques to draw patterns into what customers like and dislike, what they want, and what they do not need. Create a simple visual representation of how people will interact with each other and the product to assess their needs in a better way.

LEARN ABOUT: Marketing Insight

Why is research so valuable?

Without research, it is impossible to gauge and understand your customers. Of course, you will have an idea of what they need and who they are and, but you must dive deeper to win their loyalty. Here is why marketing research matters:

• Attract potential customers: The primary aim of marketing research is to find ways to attract potential customers. It also helps to keep current happy and coming back for more. Understanding your customers entirely is the only way to progress. You’ll lose potential customers if you stop caring about improving your user experience.
• Answer the why’s: Marketing research gives you the answer to the ‘why.’ Make use of user analytics, big data, and reporting dashboards in marketing research to tell you what your users are thinking and why they think and act that way. For example, only marketing research can explain why customers leave you.
• Data-backed decisions: Research beats trends, assumptions, and so-called best business practices. Bad decisions are often taken due to emotional reasoning and guesswork. Focusing on customer experience by listening to your customers directs you in the right direction.
• Better planning: Research keeps you from making absurd decisions by planning in a vacuum. You might not fully gauge what your customers experience and feel while using your product. Customers may use products in a way that surprises you, and they may get confused by features that seem obvious to you. Conducting too much planning but not testing your assumptions will waste your money, time, efforts, and resources. Research helps you save up on all these factors.

LEARN ABOUT: 12 Best Tools for Researchers

Advantages of MKT research

Marketing research and user experience (UX) design help you continuously improve your product by acting on your feedback. Here are the advantages of conducting marketing research:

• Improved efficiency: Efficiency draws you closer to your users. You can improve the efficiency of delivering the product to the market and also increase its usability.
• Cost-effective: Marketing research helps you make the right decisions based on consumer demand, thus saving you costs in creating something that customers do not like or want.

LEARN ABOUT:  Test Market Demand

• Competitive edge: Quicker, more robust insights can help you place your services and products strategically, gaining a competitive advantage over others.
• Build strategies: You can quickly build, alter, or design new approaches to attract your users and consumers.
• Improved communication: Bridge the communication gap by interacting with consumers and hearing them out. This helps consumers feel wanted and special.
• LEARN ABOUT: Market research vs marketing research

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6.3 Steps in a Successful Marketing Research Plan

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• 1 Identify and describe the steps in a marketing research plan.
• 2 Discuss the different types of data research.
• 3 Explain how data is analyzed.
• 4 Discuss the importance of effective research reports.

Define the Problem

There are seven steps to a successful marketing research project (see Figure 6.3 ). Each step will be explained as we investigate how a marketing research project is conducted.

The first step, defining the problem, is often a realization that more information is needed in order to make a data-driven decision. Problem definition is the realization that there is an issue that needs to be addressed. An entrepreneur may be interested in opening a small business but must first define the problem that is to be investigated. A marketing research problem in this example is to discover the needs of the community and also to identify a potentially successful business venture.

Many times, researchers define a research question or objectives in this first step. Objectives of this research study could include: identify a new business that would be successful in the community in question, determine the size and composition of a target market for the business venture, and collect any relevant primary and secondary data that would support such a venture. At this point, the definition of the problem may be “Why are cat owners not buying our new cat toy subscription service?”

Additionally, during this first step we would want to investigate our target population for research. This is similar to a target market, as it is the group that comprises the population of interest for the study. In order to have a successful research outcome, the researcher should start with an understanding of the problem in the current situational environment.

Develop the Research Plan

Step two is to develop the research plan. What type of research is necessary to meet the established objectives of the first step? How will this data be collected? Additionally, what is the time frame of the research and budget to consider? If you must have information in the next week, a different plan would be implemented than in a situation where several months were allowed. These are issues that a researcher should address in order to meet the needs identified.

Research is often classified as coming from one of two types of data: primary and secondary. Primary data is unique information that is collected by the specific researcher with the current project in mind. This type of research doesn’t currently exist until it is pulled together for the project. Examples of primary data collection include survey, observation, experiment, or focus group data that is gathered for the current project.

Secondary data is any research that was completed for another purpose but can be used to help inform the research process. Secondary data comes in many forms and includes census data, journal articles, previously collected survey or focus group data of related topics, and compiled company data. Secondary data may be internal, such as the company’s sales records for a previous quarter, or external, such as an industry report of all related product sales. Syndicated data , a type of external secondary data, is available through subscription services and is utilized by many marketers. As you can see in Table 6.1 , primary and secondary data features are often opposite—the positive aspects of primary data are the negative side of secondary data.

There are four research types that can be used: exploratory, descriptive, experimental, and ethnographic research designs (see Figure 6.4 ). Each type has specific formats of data that can be collected. Qualitative research can be shared through words, descriptions, and open-ended comments. Qualitative data gives context but cannot be reduced to a statistic. Qualitative data examples are categorical and include case studies, diary accounts, interviews, focus groups, and open-ended surveys. By comparison, quantitative data is data that can be reduced to number of responses. The number of responses to each answer on a multiple-choice question is quantitative data. Quantitative data is numerical and includes things like age, income, group size, and height.

Exploratory research is usually used when additional general information in desired about a topic. When in the initial steps of a new project, understanding the landscape is essential, so exploratory research helps the researcher to learn more about the general nature of the industry. Exploratory research can be collected through focus groups, interviews, and review of secondary data. When examining an exploratory research design, the best use is when your company hopes to collect data that is generally qualitative in nature. 7

For instance, if a company is considering a new service for registered users but is not quite sure how well the new service will be received or wants to gain clarity of exactly how customers may use a future service, the company can host a focus group. Focus groups and interviews will be examined later in the chapter. The insights collected during the focus group can assist the company when designing the service, help to inform promotional campaign options, and verify that the service is going to be a viable option for the company.

Descriptive research design takes a bigger step into collection of data through primary research complemented by secondary data. Descriptive research helps explain the market situation and define an “opinion, attitude, or behavior” of a group of consumers, employees, or other interested groups. 8 The most common method of deploying a descriptive research design is through the use of a survey. Several types of surveys will be defined later in this chapter. Descriptive data is quantitative in nature, meaning the data can be distilled into a statistic, such as in a table or chart.

Again, descriptive data is helpful in explaining the current situation. In the opening example of LEGO , the company wanted to describe the situation regarding children’s use of its product. In order to gather a large group of opinions, a survey was created. The data that was collected through this survey allowed the company to measure the existing perceptions of parents so that alterations could be made to future plans for the company.

Experimental research , also known as causal research , helps to define a cause-and-effect relationship between two or more factors. This type of research goes beyond a correlation to determine which feature caused the reaction. Researchers generally use some type of experimental design to determine a causal relationship. An example is A/B testing, a situation where one group of research participants, group A, is exposed to one treatment and then compared to the group B participants, who experience a different situation. An example might be showing two different television commercials to a panel of consumers and then measuring the difference in perception of the product. Another example would be to have two separate packaging options available in different markets. This research would answer the question “Does one design sell better than the other?” Comparing that to the sales in each market would be part of a causal research study. 9

The final method of collecting data is through an ethnographic design. Ethnographic research is conducted in the field by watching people interact in their natural environment. For marketing research, ethnographic designs help to identify how a product is used, what actions are included in a selection, or how the consumer interacts with the product. 10

Examples of ethnographic research would be to observe how a consumer uses a particular product, such as baking soda. Although many people buy baking soda, its uses are vast. So are they using it as a refrigerator deodorizer, a toothpaste, to polish a belt buckle, or to use in baking a cake?

Select the Data Collection Method

Data collection is the systematic gathering of information that addresses the identified problem. What is the best method to do that? Picking the right method of collecting data requires that the researcher understand the target population and the design picked in the previous step. There is no perfect method; each method has both advantages and disadvantages, so it’s essential that the researcher understand the target population of the research and the research objectives in order to pick the best option.

Sometimes the data desired is best collected by watching the actions of consumers. For instance, how many cars pass a specific billboard in a day? What website led a potential customer to the company’s website? When are consumers most likely to use the snack vending machines at work? What time of day has the highest traffic on a social media post? What is the most streamed television program this week? Observational research is the collecting of data based on actions taken by those observed. Many data observations do not require the researched individuals to participate in the data collection effort to be highly valuable. Some observation requires an individual to watch and record the activities of the target population through personal observations .

Unobtrusive observation happens when those being observed aren’t aware that they are being watched. An example of an unobtrusive observation would be to watch how shoppers interact with a new stuffed animal display by using a one-way mirror. Marketers can identify which products were handled more often while also determining which were ignored.

Other methods can use technology to collect the data instead. Instances of mechanical observation include the use of vehicle recorders, which count the number of vehicles that pass a specific location. Computers can also assess the number of shoppers who enter a store, the most popular entry point for train station commuters, or the peak time for cars to park in a parking garage.

When you want to get a more in-depth response from research participants, one method is to complete a one-on-one interview . One-on-one interviews allow the researcher to ask specific questions that match the respondent’s unique perspective as well as follow-up questions that piggyback on responses already completed. An interview allows the researcher to have a deeper understanding of the needs of the respondent, which is another strength of this type of data collection. The downside of personal interviews it that a discussion can be very time-consuming and results in only one respondent’s answers. Therefore, in order to get a large sample of respondents, the interview method may not be the most efficient method.

Taking the benefits of an interview and applying them to a small group of people is the design of a focus group . A focus group is a small number of people, usually 8 to 12, who meet the sample requirements. These individuals together are asked a series of questions where they are encouraged to build upon each other’s responses, either by agreeing or disagreeing with the other group members. Focus groups are similar to interviews in that they allow the researcher, through a moderator, to get more detailed information from a small group of potential customers (see Figure 6.5 ).

Link to Learning

Focus groups.

Focus groups are a common method for gathering insights into consumer thinking and habits. Companies will use this information to develop or shift their initiatives. The best way to understand a focus group is to watch a few examples or explanations. TED-Ed has this video that explains how focus groups work.

You might be asking when it is best to use a focus group or a survey. Learn the differences, the pros and cons of each, and the specific types of questions you ask in both situations in this article .

Preparing for a focus group is critical to success. It requires knowing the material and questions while also managing the group of people. Watch this video to learn more about how to prepare for a focus group and the types of things to be aware of.

One of the benefits of a focus group over individual interviews is that synergy can be generated when a participant builds on another’s ideas. Additionally, for the same amount of time, a researcher can hear from multiple respondents instead of just one. 11 Of course, as with every method of data collection, there are downsides to a focus group as well. Focus groups have the potential to be overwhelmed by one or two aggressive personalities, and the format can discourage more reserved individuals from speaking up. Finally, like interviews, the responses in a focus group are qualitative in nature and are difficult to distill into an easy statistic or two.

Combining a variety of questions on one instrument is called a survey or questionnaire . Collecting primary data is commonly done through surveys due to their versatility. A survey allows the researcher to ask the same set of questions of a large group of respondents. Response rates of surveys are calculated by dividing the number of surveys completed by the total number attempted. Surveys are flexible and can collect a variety of quantitative and qualitative data. Questions can include simplified yes or no questions, select all that apply, questions that are on a scale, or a variety of open-ended types of questions. There are four types of surveys (see Table 6.2 ) we will cover, each with strengths and weaknesses defined.

Let’s start off with mailed surveys —surveys that are sent to potential respondents through a mail service. Mailed surveys used to be more commonly used due to the ability to reach every household. In some instances, a mailed survey is still the best way to collect data. For example, every 10 years the United States conducts a census of its population (see Figure 6.6 ). The first step in that data collection is to send every household a survey through the US Postal Service (USPS). The benefit is that respondents can complete and return the survey at their convenience. The downside of mailed surveys are expense and timeliness of responses. A mailed survey requires postage, both when it is sent to the recipient and when it is returned. That, along with the cost of printing, paper, and both sending and return envelopes, adds up quickly. Additionally, physically mailing surveys takes time. One method of reducing cost is to send with bulk-rate postage, but that slows down the delivery of the survey. Also, because of the convenience to the respondent, completed surveys may be returned several weeks after being sent. Finally, some mailed survey data must be manually entered into the analysis software, which can cause delays or issues due to entry errors.

Phone surveys are completed during a phone conversation with the respondent. Although the traditional phone survey requires a data collector to talk with the participant, current technology allows for computer-assisted voice surveys or surveys to be completed by asking the respondent to push a specific button for each potential answer. Phone surveys are time intensive but allow the respondent to ask questions and the surveyor to request additional information or clarification on a question if warranted. Phone surveys require the respondent to complete the survey simultaneously with the collector, which is a limitation as there are restrictions for when phone calls are allowed. According to Telephone Consumer Protection Act , approved by Congress in 1991, no calls can be made prior to 8:00 a.m. or after 9:00 p.m. in the recipient’s time zone. 12 Many restrictions are outlined in this original legislation and have been added to since due to ever-changing technology.

In-person surveys are when the respondent and data collector are physically in the same location. In-person surveys allow the respondent to share specific information, ask questions of the surveyor, and follow up on previous answers. Surveys collected through this method can take place in a variety of ways: through door-to-door collection, in a public location, or at a person’s workplace. Although in-person surveys are time intensive and require more labor to collect data than some other methods, in some cases it’s the best way to collect the required data. In-person surveys conducted through a door-to-door method is the follow-up used for the census if respondents do not complete the mailed survey. One of the downsides of in-person surveys is the reluctance of potential respondents to stop their current activity and answer questions. Furthermore, people may not feel comfortable sharing private or personal information during a face-to-face conversation.

Electronic surveys are sent or collected through digital means and is an opportunity that can be added to any of the above methods as well as some new delivery options. Surveys can be sent through email, and respondents can either reply to the email or open a hyperlink to an online survey (see Figure 6.7 ). Additionally, a letter can be mailed that asks members of the survey sample to log in to a website rather than to return a mailed response. Many marketers now use links, QR codes, or electronic devices to easily connect to a survey. Digitally collected data has the benefit of being less time intensive and is often a more economical way to gather and input responses than more manual methods. A survey that could take months to collect through the mail can be completed within a week through digital means.

Design the Sample

Although you might want to include every possible person who matches your target market in your research, it’s often not a feasible option, nor is it of value. If you did decide to include everyone, you would be completing a census of the population. Getting everyone to participate would be time-consuming and highly expensive, so instead marketers use a sample , whereby a portion of the whole is included in the research. It’s similar to the samples you might receive at the grocery store or ice cream shop; it isn’t a full serving, but it does give you a good taste of what the whole would be like.

So how do you know who should be included in the sample? Researchers identify parameters for their studies, called sample frames . A sample frame for one study may be college students who live on campus; for another study, it may be retired people in Dallas, Texas, or small-business owners who have fewer than 10 employees. The individual entities within the sampling frame would be considered a sampling unit . A sampling unit is each individual respondent that would be considered as matching the sample frame established by the research. If a researcher wants businesses to participate in a study, then businesses would be the sampling unit in that case.

The number of sampling units included in the research is the sample size . Many calculations can be conducted to indicate what the correct size of the sample should be. Issues to consider are the size of the population, the confidence level that the data represents the entire population, the ease of accessing the units in the frame, and the budget allocated for the research.

There are two main categories of samples: probability and nonprobability (see Figure 6.8 ). Probability samples are those in which every member of the sample has an identified likelihood of being selected. Several probability sample methods can be utilized. One probability sampling technique is called a simple random sample , where not only does every person have an identified likelihood of being selected to be in the sample, but every person also has an equal chance of exclusion. An example of a simple random sample would be to put the names of all members of a group into a hat and simply draw out a specific number to be included. You could say a raffle would be a good example of a simple random sample.

Another probability sample type is a stratified random sample , where the population is divided into groups by category and then a random sample of each category is selected to participate. For instance, if you were conducting a study of college students from your school and wanted to make sure you had all grade levels included, you might take the names of all students and split them into different groups by grade level—freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior. Then, from those categories, you would draw names out of each of the pools, or strata.

A nonprobability sample is a situation in which each potential member of the sample has an unknown likelihood of being selected in the sample. Research findings that are from a nonprobability sample cannot be applied beyond the sample. Several examples of nonprobability sampling are available to researchers and include two that we will look at more closely: convenience sampling and judgment sampling.

The first nonprobability sampling technique is a convenience sample . Just like it sounds, a convenience sample is when the researcher finds a group through a nonscientific method by picking potential research participants in a convenient manner. An example might be to ask other students in a class you are taking to complete a survey that you are doing for a class assignment or passing out surveys at a basketball game or theater performance.

A judgment sample is a type of nonprobability sample that allows the researcher to determine if they believe the individual meets the criteria set for the sample frame to complete the research. For instance, you may be interested in researching mothers, so you sit outside a toy store and ask an individual who is carrying a baby to participate.

Collect the Data

Now that all the plans have been established, the instrument has been created, and the group of participants has been identified, it is time to start collecting data. As explained earlier in this chapter, data collection is the process of gathering information from a variety of sources that will satisfy the research objectives defined in step one. Data collection can be as simple as sending out an email with a survey link enclosed or as complex as an experiment with hundreds of consumers. The method of collection directly influences the length of this process. Conducting personal interviews or completing an experiment, as previously mentioned, can add weeks or months to the research process, whereas sending out an electronic survey may allow a researcher to collect the necessary data in a few days. 13

Analyze and Interpret the Data

Once the data has been collected, the process of analyzing it may begin. Data analysis is the distillation of the information into a more understandable and actionable format. The analysis itself can take many forms, from the use of basic statistics to a more comprehensive data visualization process. First, let’s discuss some basic statistics that can be used to represent data.

The first is the mean of quantitative data. A mean is often defined as the arithmetic average of values. The formula is:

A common use of the mean calculation is with exam scores. Say, for example, you have earned the following scores on your marketing exams: 72, 85, 68, and 77. To find the mean, you would add up the four scores for a total of 302. Then, in order to generate a mean, that number needs to be divided by the number of exam scores included, which is 4. The mean would be 302 divided by 4, for a mean test score of 75.5. Understanding the mean can help to determine, with one number, the weight of a particular value.

Another commonly used statistic is median. The median is often referred to as the middle number. To generate a median, all the numeric answers are placed in order, and the middle number is the median. Median is a common statistic when identifying the income level of a specific geographic region. 14 For instance, the median household income for Albuquerque, New Mexico, between 2015 and 2019 was $52,911. 15 In this case, there are just as many people with an income above the amount as there are below.

Mode is another statistic that is used to represent data of all types, as it can be used with quantitative or qualitative data and represents the most frequent answer. Eye color, hair color, and vehicle color can all be presented with a mode statistic. Additionally, some researchers expand on the concept of mode and present the frequency of all responses, not just identifying the most common response. Data such as this can easily be presented in a frequency graph, 16 such as the one in Figure 6.9 .

Additionally, researchers use other analyses to represent the data rather than to present the entirety of each response. For example, maybe the relationship between two values is important to understand. In this case, the researcher may share the data as a cross tabulation (see Figure 6.10 ). Below is the same data as above regarding social media use cross tabulated with gender—as you can see, the data is more descriptive when you can distinguish between the gender identifiers and how much time is spent per day on social media.

Not all data can be presented in a graphical format due to the nature of the information. Sometimes with qualitative methods of data collection, the responses cannot be distilled into a simple statistic or graph. In that case, the use of quotations, otherwise known as verbatims , can be used. These are direct statements presented by the respondents. Often you will see a verbatim statement when reading a movie or book review. The critic’s statements are used in part or in whole to represent their feelings about the newly released item.

Infographics

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. For this reason, research results are often shown in a graphical format in which data can be taken in quickly, called an infographic .

Check out this infographic on what components make for a good infographic. As you can see, a good infographic needs four components: data, design, a story, and the ability to share it with others. Without all four pieces, it is not as valuable a resource as it could be. The ultimate infographic is represented as the intersection of all four.

Infographics are particularly advantageous online. Refer to this infographic on why they are beneficial to use online .

Prepare the Research Report

The marketing research process concludes by sharing the generated data and makes recommendations for future actions. What starts as simple data must be interpreted into an analysis. All information gathered should be conveyed in order to make decisions for future marketing actions. One item that is often part of the final step is to discuss areas that may have been missed with the current project or any area of further study identified while completing it. Without the final step of the marketing research project, the first six steps are without value. It is only after the information is shared, through a formal presentation or report, that those recommendations can be implemented and improvements made. The first six steps are used to generate information, while the last is to initiate action. During this last step is also when an evaluation of the process is conducted. If this research were to be completed again, how would we do it differently? Did the right questions get answered with the survey questions posed to the respondents? Follow-up on some of these key questions can lead to additional research, a different study, or further analysis of data collected.

Methods of Quantifying Marketing Research

One of the ways of sharing information gained through marketing research is to quantify the research . Quantifying the research means to take a variety of data and compile into a quantity that is more easily understood. This is a simple process if you want to know how many people attended a basketball game, but if you want to quantify the number of students who made a positive comment on a questionnaire, it can be a little more complicated. Researchers have a variety of methods to collect and then share these different scores. Below are some of the most common types used in business.

Is a customer aware of a product, brand, or company? What is meant by awareness? Awareness in the context of marketing research is when a consumer is familiar with the product, brand, or company. It does not assume that the consumer has tried the product or has purchased it. Consumers are just aware. That is a measure that many businesses find valuable. There are several ways to measure awareness. For instance, the first type of awareness is unaided awareness . This type of awareness is when no prompts for a product, brand, or company are given. If you were collecting information on fast-food restaurants, you might ask a respondent to list all the fast-food restaurants that serve a chicken sandwich. Aided awareness would be providing a list of products, brands, or companies and the respondent selects from the list. For instance, if you give a respondent a list of fast-food restaurants and ask them to mark all the locations with a chicken sandwich, you are collecting data through an aided method. Collecting these answers helps a company determine how the business location compares to those of its competitors. 17

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

Have you ever been asked to complete a survey at the end of a purchase? Many businesses complete research on buying, returning, or other customer service processes. A customer satisfaction score , also known as CSAT, is a measure of how satisfied customers are with the product, brand, or service. A CSAT score is usually on a scale of 0 to 100 percent. 18 But what constitutes a “good” CSAT score? Although what is identified as good can vary by industry, normally anything in the range from 75 to 85 would be considered good. Of course, a number higher than 85 would be considered exceptional. 19

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and Customer Effort Score (CES)

Other metrics often used are a customer acquisition cost (CAC) and customer effort score (CES). How much does it cost a company to gain customers? That’s the purpose of calculating the customer acquisition cost. To calculate the customer acquisition cost , a company would need to total all expenses that were accrued to gain new customers. This would include any advertising, public relations, social media postings, etc. When a total cost is determined, it is divided by the number of new customers gained through this campaign.

The final score to discuss is the customer effort score , also known as a CES. The CES is a “survey used to measure the ease of service experience with an organization.” 20 Companies that are easy to work with have a better CES than a company that is notorious for being difficult. An example would be to ask a consumer about the ease of making a purchase online by incorporating a one-question survey after a purchase is confirmed. If a number of responses come back negative or slightly negative, the company will realize that it needs to investigate and develop a more user-friendly process.

Knowledge Check

It’s time to check your knowledge on the concepts presented in this section. Refer to the Answer Key at the end of the book for feedback.

• Defining the problem
• Developing the research plan
• Selecting a data collection method
• Designing the sample
• you are able to send it to all households in an area
• it is inexpensive
• responses are automatically loaded into the software
• the data comes in quickly
• Primary data
• Secondary data
• Secondary and primary data
• Professional data
• It shows how respondents answered two variables in relation to each other and can help determine patterns by different groups of respondents.
• By presenting the data in the form of a picture, the information is easier for the reader to understand.
• It is an easy way to see how often one answer is selected by the respondents.
• This analysis can used to present interview or focus group data.

This book may not be used in the training of large language models or otherwise be ingested into large language models or generative AI offerings without OpenStax's permission.

Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution License and you must attribute OpenStax.

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/1-unit-introduction

• Authors: Dr. Maria Gomez Albrecht, Dr. Mark Green, Linda Hoffman
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Principles of Marketing
• Publication date: Jan 25, 2023
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/1-unit-introduction
• Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/6-3-steps-in-a-successful-marketing-research-plan

© Jan 9, 2024 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.

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Market research definition

Market research – in-house or outsourced, market research in the age of data, when to use market research.

• Types of market research 

Different types of primary research

How to do market research (primary data), how to do secondary market research, communicating your market research findings, choose the right platform for your market research, try qualtrics for free, the ultimate guide to market research: how to conduct it like a pro.

27 min read Wondering how to do market research? Or even where to start learning about it? Use our ultimate guide to understand the basics and discover how you can use market research to help your business.

Market research is the practice of gathering information about the needs and preferences of your target audience – potential consumers of your product.

When you understand how your target consumer feels and behaves, you can then take steps to meet their needs and mitigate the risk of an experience gap – where there is a shortfall between what a consumer expects you to deliver and what you actually deliver. Market research can also help you keep abreast of what your competitors are offering, which in turn will affect what your customers expect from you.

Market research connects with every aspect of a business – including brand , product , customer service , marketing and sales.

Market research generally focuses on understanding:

• The consumer (current customers, past customers, non-customers, influencers))
• The company (product or service design, promotion, pricing, placement, service, sales)
• The competitors (and how their market offerings interact in the market environment)
• The industry overall (whether it’s growing or moving in a certain direction)

Free eBook: 2024 market research trends report

Why is market research important?

A successful business relies on understanding what like, what they dislike, what they need and what messaging they will respond to. Businesses also need to understand their competition to identify opportunities to differentiate their products and services from other companies.

Today’s business leaders face an endless stream of decisions around target markets, pricing, promotion, distribution channels, and product features and benefits . They must account for all the factors involved, and there are market research studies and methodologies strategically designed to capture meaningful data to inform every choice. It can be a daunting task.

Market research allows companies to make data-driven decisions to drive growth and innovation.

What happens when you don’t do market research?

Without market research, business decisions are based at best on past consumer behavior, economic indicators, or at worst, on gut feel. Decisions are made in a bubble without thought to what the competition is doing. An important aim of market research is to remove subjective opinions when making business decisions. As a brand you are there to serve your customers, not personal preferences within the company. You are far more likely to be successful if you know the difference, and market research will help make sure your decisions are insight-driven.

Traditionally there have been specialist market researchers who are very good at what they do, and businesses have been reliant on their ability to do it. Market research specialists will always be an important part of the industry, as most brands are limited by their internal capacity, expertise and budgets and need to outsource at least some aspects of the work.

However, the market research external agency model has meant that brands struggled to keep up with the pace of change. Their customers would suffer because their needs were not being wholly met with point-in-time market research.

Businesses looking to conduct market research have to tackle many questions –

• Who are my consumers, and how should I segment and prioritize them?
• What are they looking for within my category?
• How much are they buying, and what are their purchase triggers, barriers, and buying habits?
• Will my marketing and communications efforts resonate?
• Is my brand healthy ?
• What product features matter most?
• Is my product or service ready for launch?
• Are my pricing and packaging plans optimized?

They all need to be answered, but many businesses have found the process of data collection daunting, time-consuming and expensive. The hardest battle is often knowing where to begin and short-term demands have often taken priority over longer-term projects that require patience to offer return on investment.

Today however, the industry is making huge strides, driven by quickening product cycles, tighter competition and business imperatives around more data-driven decision making. With the emergence of simple, easy to use tools , some degree of in-house market research is now seen as essential, with fewer excuses not to use data to inform your decisions. With greater accessibility to such software, everyone can be an expert regardless of level or experience.

How is this possible?

The art of research hasn’t gone away. It is still a complex job and the volume of data that needs to be analyzed is huge. However with the right tools and support, sophisticated research can look very simple – allowing you to focus on taking action on what matters.

If you’re not yet using technology to augment your in-house market research, now is the time to start.

The most successful brands rely on multiple sources of data to inform their strategy and decision making, from their marketing segmentation to the product features they develop to comments on social media. In fact, there’s tools out there that use machine learning and AI to automate the tracking of what’s people are saying about your brand across all sites.

The emergence of newer and more sophisticated tools and platforms gives brands access to more data sources than ever and how the data is analyzed and used to make decisions. This also increases the speed at which they operate, with minimal lead time allowing brands to be responsive to business conditions and take an agile approach to improvements and opportunities.

Expert partners have an important role in getting the best data, particularly giving access to additional market research know-how, helping you find respondents , fielding surveys and reporting on results.

How do you measure success?

Business activities are usually measured on how well they deliver return on investment (ROI). Since market research doesn’t generate any revenue directly, its success has to be measured by looking at the positive outcomes it drives – happier customers, a healthier brand, and so on.

When changes to your products or your marketing strategy are made as a result of your market research findings, you can compare on a before-and-after basis to see if the knowledge you acted on has delivered value.

Regardless of the function you work within, understanding the consumer is the goal of any market research. To do this, we have to understand what their needs are in order to effectively meet them. If we do that, we are more likely to drive customer satisfaction , and in turn, increase customer retention .

Several metrics and KPIs are used to gauge the success of decisions made from market research results, including

• Brand awareness within the target market
• Share of wallet
• CSAT (customer satisfaction)
• NPS (Net Promoter Score)

You can use market research for almost anything related to your current customers, potential customer base or target market. If you want to find something out from your target audience, it’s likely market research is the answer.

Here are a few of the most common uses:

Buyer segmentation and profiling

Segmentation is a popular technique that separates your target market according to key characteristics, such as behavior, demographic information and social attitudes. Segmentation allows you to create relevant content for your different segments, ideally helping you to better connect with all of them.

Buyer personas are profiles of fictional customers – with real attributes. Buyer personas help you develop products and communications that are right for your different audiences, and can also guide your decision-making process. Buyer personas capture the key characteristics of your customer segments, along with meaningful insights about what they want or need from you. They provide a powerful reminder of consumer attitudes when developing a product or service, a marketing campaign or a new brand direction.

By understanding your buyers and potential customers, including their motivations, needs, and pain points, you can optimize everything from your marketing communications to your products to make sure the right people get the relevant content, at the right time, and via the right channel .

Attitudes and Usage surveys

Attitude & Usage research helps you to grow your brand by providing a detailed understanding of consumers. It helps you understand how consumers use certain products and why, what their needs are, what their preferences are, and what their pain points are. It helps you to find gaps in the market, anticipate future category needs, identify barriers to entry and build accurate go-to-market strategies and business plans.

Marketing strategy

Effective market research is a crucial tool for developing an effective marketing strategy – a company’s plan for how they will promote their products.

It helps marketers look like rock stars by helping them understand the target market to avoid mistakes, stay on message, and predict customer needs . It’s marketing’s job to leverage relevant data to reach the best possible solution  based on the research available. Then, they can implement the solution, modify the solution, and successfully deliver that solution to the market.

Product development

You can conduct market research into how a select group of consumers use and perceive your product – from how they use it through to what they like and dislike about it. Evaluating your strengths and weaknesses early on allows you to focus resources on ideas with the most potential and to gear your product or service design to a specific market.

Chobani’s yogurt pouches are a product optimized through great market research . Using product concept testing – a form of market research – Chobani identified that packaging could negatively impact consumer purchase decisions. The brand made a subtle change, ensuring the item satisfied the needs of consumers. This ability to constantly refine its products for customer needs and preferences has helped Chobani become Australia’s #1 yogurt brand and increase market share.

Pricing decisions

Market research provides businesses with insights to guide pricing decisions too. One of the most powerful tools available to market researchers is conjoint analysis, a form of market research study that uses choice modeling to help brands identify the perfect set of features and price for customers. Another useful tool is the Gabor-Granger method, which helps you identify the highest price consumers are willing to pay for a given product or service.

Brand tracking studies

A company’s brand is one of its most important assets. But unlike other metrics like product sales, it’s not a tangible measure you can simply pull from your system. Regular market research that tracks consumer perceptions of your brand allows you to monitor and optimize your brand strategy in real time, then respond to consumer feedback to help maintain or build your brand with your target customers.

Advertising and communications testing

Advertising campaigns can be expensive, and without pre-testing, they carry risk of falling flat with your target audience. By testing your campaigns, whether it’s the message or the creative, you can understand how consumers respond to your communications before you deploy them so you can make changes in response to consumer feedback before you go live.

Finder, which is one of the world’s fastest-growing online comparison websites, is an example of a brand using market research to inject some analytical rigor into the business. Fueled by great market research, the business lifted brand awareness by 23 percent, boosted NPS by 8 points, and scored record profits – all within 10 weeks.

Competitive analysis

Another key part of developing the right product and communications is understanding your main competitors and how consumers perceive them. You may have looked at their websites and tried out their product or service, but unless you know how consumers perceive them, you won’t have an accurate view of where you stack up in comparison. Understanding their position in the market allows you to identify the strengths you can exploit, as well as any weaknesses you can address to help you compete better.

Customer Story

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Types of market research

Although there are many types market research, all methods can be sorted into one of two categories: primary and secondary.

Primary research

Primary research is market research data that you collect yourself. This is raw data collected through a range of different means – surveys , focus groups,  , observation and interviews being among the most popular.

Primary information is fresh, unused data, giving you a perspective that is current or perhaps extra confidence when confirming hypotheses you already had. It can also be very targeted to your exact needs. Primary information can be extremely valuable. Tools for collecting primary information are increasingly sophisticated and the market is growing rapidly.

Historically, conducting market research in-house has been a daunting concept for brands because they don’t quite know where to begin, or how to handle vast volumes of data. Now, the emergence of technology has meant that brands have access to simple, easy to use tools to help with exactly that problem. As a result, brands are more confident about their own projects and data with the added benefit of seeing the insights emerge in real-time.

Secondary research

Secondary research is the use of data that has already been collected, analyzed and published – typically it’s data you don’t own and that hasn’t been conducted with your business specifically in mind, although there are forms of internal secondary data like old reports or figures from past financial years that come from within your business. Secondary research can be used to support the use of primary research.

Secondary research can be beneficial to small businesses because it is sometimes easier to obtain, often through research companies. Although the rise of primary research tools are challenging this trend by allowing businesses to conduct their own market research more cheaply, secondary research is often a cheaper alternative for businesses who need to spend money carefully. Some forms of secondary research have been described as ‘lean market research’ because they are fast and pragmatic, building on what’s already there.

Because it’s not specific to your business, secondary research may be less relevant, and you’ll need to be careful to make sure it applies to your exact research question. It may also not be owned, which means your competitors and other parties also have access to it.

Primary or secondary research – which to choose?

Both primary and secondary research have their advantages, but they are often best used when paired together, giving you the confidence to act knowing that the hypothesis you have is robust.

Secondary research is sometimes preferred because there is a misunderstanding of the feasibility of primary research. Thanks to advances in technology, brands have far greater accessibility to primary research, but this isn’t always known.

If you’ve decided to gather your own primary information, there are many different data collection methods that you may consider. For example:

• Customer surveys
• Focus groups
• Observation

Think carefully about what you’re trying to accomplish before picking the data collection method(s) you’re going to use. Each one has its pros and cons. Asking someone a simple, multiple-choice survey question will generate a different type of data than you might obtain with an in-depth interview. Determine if your primary research is exploratory or specific, and if you’ll need qualitative research, quantitative research, or both.

Qualitative vs quantitative

Another way of categorizing different types of market research is according to whether they are qualitative or quantitative.

Qualitative research

Qualitative research is the collection of data that is non-numerical in nature. It summarizes and infers, rather than pin-points an exact truth. It is exploratory and can lead to the generation of a hypothesis.

Market research techniques that would gather qualitative data include:

• Interviews (face to face / telephone)
• Open-ended survey questions

Researchers use these types of market research technique because they can add more depth to the data. So for example, in focus groups or interviews, rather than being limited to ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for a certain question, you can start to understand why someone might feel a certain way.

Quantitative research

Quantitative research is the collection of data that is numerical in nature. It is much more black and white in comparison to qualitative data, although you need to make sure there is a representative sample if you want the results to be reflective of reality.

Quantitative researchers often start with a hypothesis and then collect data which can be used to determine whether empirical evidence to support that hypothesis exists.

Quantitative research methods include:

• Questionnaires
• Review scores

Exploratory and specific research

Exploratory research is the approach to take if you don’t know what you don’t know. It can give you broad insights about your customers, product, brand, and market. If you want to answer a specific question, then you’ll be conducting specific research.

• Exploratory . This research is general and open-ended, and typically involves lengthy interviews with an individual or small focus group.
• Specific . This research is often used to solve a problem identified in exploratory research. It involves more structured, formal interviews.

Exploratory primary research is generally conducted by collecting qualitative data. Specific research usually finds its insights through quantitative data.

Primary research can be qualitative or quantitative, large-scale or focused and specific. You’ll carry it out using methods like surveys – which can be used for both qualitative and quantitative studies – focus groups, observation of consumer behavior, interviews, or online tools.

Step 1: Identify your research topic

Research topics could include:

• Product features
• Product or service launch
• Understanding a new target audience (or updating an existing audience)
• Brand identity
• Marketing campaign concepts
• Customer experience

Step 2: Draft a research hypothesis

A hypothesis is the assumption you’re starting out with. Since you can disprove a negative much more easily than prove a positive, a hypothesis is a negative statement such as ‘price has no effect on brand perception’.

Step 3: Determine which research methods are most effective

Your choice of methods depends on budget, time constraints, and the type of question you’re trying to answer. You could combine surveys, interviews and focus groups to get a mix of qualitative and quantitative data.

Step 4: Determine how you will collect and analyze your data.

Primary research can generate a huge amount of data, and when the goal is to uncover actionable insight, it can be difficult to know where to begin or what to pay attention to.

The rise in brands taking their market research and data analysis in-house has coincided with the rise of technology simplifying the process. These tools pull through large volumes of data and outline significant information that will help you make the most important decisions.

Step 5: Conduct your research!

This is how you can run your research using Qualtrics CoreXM

• Pre-launch – Here you want to ensure that the survey/ other research methods conform to the project specifications (what you want to achieve/research)
• Soft launch – Collect a small fraction of the total data before you fully launch. This means you can check that everything is working as it should and you can correct any data quality issues.
• Full launch – You’ve done the hard work to get to this point. If you’re using a tool, you can sit back and relax, or if you get curious you can check on the data in your account.
• Review – review your data for any issues or low-quality responses. You may need to remove this in order not to impact the analysis of the data.

A helping hand

If you are missing the skills, capacity or inclination to manage your research internally, Qualtrics Research Services can help. From design, to writing the survey based on your needs, to help with survey programming, to handling the reporting, Research Services acts as an extension of the team and can help wherever necessary.

Secondary market research can be taken from a variety of places. Some data is completely free to access – other information could end up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are three broad categories of secondary research sources:

• Public sources – these sources are accessible to anyone who asks for them. They include census data, market statistics, library catalogs, university libraries and more. Other organizations may also put out free data from time to time with the goal of advancing a cause, or catching people’s attention.
• Internal sources – sometimes the most valuable sources of data already exist somewhere within your organization. Internal sources can be preferable for secondary research on account of their price (free) and unique findings. Since internal sources are not accessible by competitors, using them can provide a distinct competitive advantage.
• Commercial sources – if you have money for it, the easiest way to acquire secondary market research is to simply buy it from private companies. Many organizations exist for the sole purpose of doing market research and can provide reliable, in-depth, industry-specific reports.

No matter where your research is coming from, it is important to ensure that the source is reputable and reliable so you can be confident in the conclusions you draw from it.

How do you know if a source is reliable?

Use established and well-known research publishers, such as the XM Institute , Forrester and McKinsey . Government websites also publish research and this is free of charge. By taking the information directly from the source (rather than a third party) you are minimizing the risk of the data being misinterpreted and the message or insights being acted on out of context.

How to apply secondary research

The purpose and application of secondary research will vary depending on your circumstances. Often, secondary research is used to support primary research and therefore give you greater confidence in your conclusions. However, there may be circumstances that prevent this – such as the timeframe and budget of the project.

Keep an open mind when collecting all the relevant research so that there isn’t any collection bias. Then begin analyzing the conclusions formed to see if any trends start to appear. This will help you to draw a consensus from the secondary research overall.

Market research success is defined by the impact it has on your business’s success. Make sure it’s not discarded or ignored by communicating your findings effectively. Here are some tips on how to do it.

• Less is more – Preface your market research report with executive summaries that highlight your key discoveries and their implications
• Lead with the basic information – Share the top 4-5 recommendations in bullet-point form, rather than requiring your readers to go through pages of analysis and data
• Model the impact – Provide examples and model the impact of any changes you put in place based on your findings
• Show, don’t tell – Add illustrative examples that relate directly to the research findings and emphasize specific points
• Speed is of the essence – Make data available in real-time so it can be rapidly incorporated into strategies and acted upon to maximize value
• Work with experts – Make sure you’ve access to a dedicated team of experts ready to help you design and launch successful projects

Trusted by 8,500 brands for everything from product testing to competitor analysis, Our Strategic Research software is the world’s most powerful and flexible research platform . With over 100 question types and advanced logic, you can build out your surveys and see real-time data you can share across the organization. Plus, you’ll be able to turn data into insights with iQ, our predictive intelligence engine that runs complicated analysis at the click of a button.

Related resources

Mixed methods research 17 min read, market intelligence 10 min read, marketing insights 11 min read, ethnographic research 11 min read, qualitative vs quantitative research 13 min read, qualitative research questions 11 min read, qualitative research design 12 min read, request demo.

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The Marketing Research Process in 6 Steps

Learn about the six steps in the marketing research process so you can better understand your target consumer and your marketing strategy.

When launching into marketing strategy, it’s important to have a marketing research process so that one isn’t going into it unprepared. Your market research process may involve tracking the engagement with social media posts or questioning a focus group about their household spending habits. Whatever the path, companies have long embraced different types of research methods to gain consumer insight, help strengthen a brand, and achieve a competitive edge in the market.

These approaches are part of marketing research, a process that can reveal information about a company’s marketing efforts, such as which products have the highest potential for success or what advertising strategies will be the most impactful. Marketing research is a valuable tool in developing an effective marketing strategy. For example, conducting marketing research helps a business discover key information about its market standing and target customers. It also provides essential details about demographics and where to prioritize marketing investments. Yet, less than 40% of marketers use consumer research to influence their decisions. 

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What is marketing research? 

Marketing research is the process of collecting and analyzing data from consumers and competitors to help businesses explore who their target customer is and what they want from the brand. Good marketing research can also provide insight into how effective marketing efforts are, and explore potential areas for growth. Marketing research covers a business’s entire marketing plan—from creating brand awareness to securing brand loyalists.  

To conduct marketing research, businesses collect information from consumers to help identify a product’s target market and how best to reach it. They do this by gathering consumer feedback from product surveys, focus groups, social media tracking, phone interviews, and consumer observation. A company may also complete a competitor analysis to assess market share and check how it’s stacking up against the competition. 

The 6 steps in the marketing process

The market research process is designed to paint a thorough picture of a company’s marketing plan, helping to identify where the weaknesses and strengths exist. The first step in the marketing research process is defining the problem or the question your research is trying to answer, followed by developing a research plan to answer that question, collecting and analyzing the data, and then producing a report. 

1. Identify the opportunity

The first step is to define the problem you’re aiming to solve. Asking specific questions will help pinpoint the most pressing needs or reveal the biggest opportunities to reach your research objectives . Questions you might ask in this initial stage include:

• How many of our recent buyers are first-time customers? 
• How can we turn them into repeat customers?
• Why are sales lower than last quarter? 
• Are our prices too high?
• Why do customers put items in their shopping cart but don’t complete the purchase? 
• How can we make our checkout flow more efficient?

2. Develop a research plan

A marketing research plan can help a business outline how to find the ways to address the questions it seeks to answer or the problems it wishes to solve. How you plan and design this research depends on the budget available, the research method chosen to source data, and the scope of the project.

There are two main research methods you can use to collect your data: primary research and secondary research. Each pulls information from different sources to provide a clear snapshot of your marketing research plan. 

• Primary research. Primary research involves gathering original data through collection methods such as surveys or in-person interviews, then synthesizing that data into a report. Although potentially time-consuming and costly, it may be among the best ways to accurately collect answers to your questions.
• Secondary research. Secondary research data involves gathering and synthesizing information gleaned from other sources, such as research reports, websites, or government files. Most research plans start with secondary data since it’s usually less expensive and readily available. You can use the information you gleaned using secondary data to inform how you will approach your primary research. 

The scope and budget for the plan will likely influence the time it takes to complete the research. A smaller sample size, for example, may only need a few weeks, while a larger, complex research project may take months (and more money) to collect the necessary information.   

3. Collect the data

After identifying objectives, it’s important to start collecting information . There are several different data collection methods that you can use to source information.

• Surveys. Conducting a survey is an effective primary research method that can provide valuable feedback about business practices, marketing tactics, and product demand. Unbiased survey research can help capture the thoughts and feelings of a particular demographic. 
• A/B testing. This research methodology compares two or more versions of a variable— say, two layouts of the same website (version A and B)—to collect information to test which would result in better outcomes and consumer engagement. In this scenario, the goal may be to see which site attracts more direct traffic to increase the number of monthly visitors.
• Social media polling. Setting up a social media poll can be an effective and inexpensive way to collect user data. Polling current and potential customers gathers insight from  your target audience, which can impact how the company curates its products and user experiences. 
• Interviews. Face-to-face or phone interviews can help companies assess consumer expectations from a brand. During these interviews, participants may be asked questions like: How long have you been a customer? Or: Why did you choose this brand over the competitor?
• Focus groups. Focus groups gather a select group of people together based on demographics, buying history, or other factors to collect non-numerical (qualitative) data about a particular product or service . With focus groups, moderators can capture a variety of opinions and emotions via open-ended conversation or lines of questioning to capture the feelings potential (or current) customers have toward a product or service. 

4. Analyze your data

Analyzing data is a way to uncover trends or patterns within the company or in the marketplace that can impact a business’s market performance. Data analysis transforms raw metrics into digestible information to provide the answers to your initial research questions.

There are four main types of analysis you can use to evaluate data: 

• Descriptive analytics. Analysis tools that lay out data in charts and graphs, for example, so you can see the big picture are known as descriptive analytics. This type of analysis presents a snapshot of performance in numbers, such as unique users or page views. 
• Diagnostic analytics. Analysis tools that provide more than a general overview can help you find the “cause and effect” of a problem. For example, if the number of visitors to your website has decreased by 15% within the last six months, you’ll want to investigate why. Are too many pop-ups making it more difficult for users to navigate the site, or is the page load speed too slow and users are clicking out to another website? 
• Predictive analytics. Based on existing data, predictive analytics help companies establish predictive models to forecast future outcomes more accurately. For instance, if data points to a correlation between the start of the school year and increased clothing sales, your ecommerce company may need additional solutions to help take care of increased web traffic during this time of year. 
• Prescriptive analytics. This analytics tool combines descriptive, diagnostic, and predictive analytics methods to help companies optimize their best course of action. For example, if predictive analytics show clothing sales go up at the beginning of the school year, prescriptive analytics would assist in prescribing a solution—in this case, finding web hosting plans that upgrade site bandwidth to accommodate increased web traffic.

5. Present your results

Once you’ve done the research and analyzed the data, you can build a research report to present your key findings. You can present your report in a slideshow format, as an illustrated book, as a video, or in an interactive dashboard that allows users to look at the data in different ways. The emphasis should be to present the information in a way that is comprehensible and accessible. 

Marketing research reports contain, at minimum, key company-specific details like customer profiles, target audience buying habits, and market competitors, and address the questions your research sought to answer. Beyond that, reports typically present the findings from the research in a narrative format that incorporates visuals, like charts and graphs, alongside “real people” feedback. You’re not looking to present a stack of numbers—you want to establish a story about real people, how they behave, and their desires (as they pertain to the company or product). The report also needs to present the solutions to these problems—how the company should tailor its strategies to optimize its marketing and target its consumers better.

Other information to include in your report is how you arrived at these conclusions. Which research methods did you use? How long did it take? How big were your sample groups? Once the report is compiled, share these results with all necessary parties, like relevant stakeholders such as the marketing team, company managers, or other people this proposed shift in strategy might affect, like engineering. 

6. Incorporate your findings

Once you’ve presented your data, it’s time to develop actionable plans that put your findings into play, whether it’s developing brand-new strategies or improving existing ones. Some findings may result in big shifts to your marketing plans or small improvements that can help you optimize your company strategy overall. 

For instance, if your marketing report points to an issue with retaining a younger audience, you may need to redesign your entire social media campaign to accommodate a wider demographic. Or, you might only need a smaller shift, like offering extra promotions through social media accounts to entice current young customers to stay loyal. An ever-changing market means that your data won’t stay relevant forever, so turning your info into action can help you improve your business when it counts.

Marketing Research FAQ

What is an example of marketing research, what are the 7 types of marketing research.

• Exploratory Research
• Descriptive Research
• Causal Research
• Survey Research
• Secondary Research
• Experimental Research
• Qualitative Research

What is the main idea of marketing research?

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The marketing research process explained in 6 steps.

If you operate a business, you likely already realize that constant change is something you need to be prepared for. This applies to most aspects of your business, but none more so than marketing.

Market research is a crucial tool for businesses to choose the best marketing strategies, and provides a way to evaluate those decisions by collecting hard data . However, it can seem a bit overwhelming when you’re getting started.

Just as you wouldn’t go on holiday without a plan, you shouldn’t kick off your marketing strategy journey without having data and research to guide you. A market research plan is an integral part of making the right business decisions - it ensures you can solve any problems and that you don’t waste valuable time and effort.

Did you realize that many businesses that need to reduce their marketing budget cut out market research first? This is a mistake you want to avoid, especially if you’re launching a new service or moving into a new market.

The good news is that, if you have a process in place, marketing research doesn’t have to be overly expensive or time-consuming.

In this blog post we’ll share the important steps of the marketing research process. You can follow this guide to cut costs, improve data collection, and create the perfect market research project for your company.

Define and identify the issue

The very first step in market research is identifying a problem your business is currently facing. It also happens to be the most important part of the entire process.

Most of the time this will be a large business opportunity, or an obvious issue that needs to be acted on (or even a charitable cause you want to fight for). However, sometimes there might not be enough information available to make a decision you’re comfortable with.

• That’s where a market researcher comes in. A market researcher is someone who digs into a problem and finds data that makes it easier to come up with a solution. For example, the problem might turn out to be ‘too few people are making purchases after receiving your emails’, or ‘some features of your app aren’t being used as expected,’, or 'the fluctuations in the global cotton market are affecting profit margins.'

Once you have an explanation for the business problem , you can then focus your efforts on that specific issue for the most effective results. This is also a good time to let your imagination run wild and consider what the final research report will look like. How will it help you improve?

If the answers you expect to receive will solve the problem, then you can move forward with obtaining the data. But if you’re unsure, keep refining your objective until you hit the sweet spot.

Consider the right type of research design

At this point, you’ve defined the issue and you know what types of answers you want to have by the end of the process. Now you’re ready to progress further into the marketing research process.

It’s time to choose your data collection method . This will influence everything from your research questions to the demographic you concentrate on. It’s normal for this step of the process to feel a bit overwhelming, because of all the research tools and methods available.

Don’t worry. Each different method offers a unique way to meet your research objectives and start growing your business. A few options that might work include:

Conducting surveys

Conducting a market research survey is an effective way to better understanding your target audience and their needs. There are a few different types of surveys you can use to help improve your business.

Since this step is so integral to creating a product or service that addresses a real problem, you want to make sure it's an interactive form that incites objective and accurate responses. Play around with our ready-made market research survey template below.

market research survey

Interviewing clients and prospects.

Qualitative data like interviews offer great feedback. They let you speak with the people who are going to be most affected by any marketing that you do. By taking the time to listen to their unique opinions, you’ll be able to decide on the right path of action.

A great way to do this would be to hold a Zoom interview with a large group, run an online webinar , or hold one on one sessions that are more intimate. If you’re unsure who to talk to, use the research issue to help you decide who to interview and what to ask them.

For example, if you were looking to undertake a massive marketing research project, it would make sense to talk to any marketers in your team, as well as other key decision makers.

Running user tests

This can be done on your landing page or another webpage. It’s cost effective and can provide tons of useful takeaways and insights on how current and potential customers react to a new product, different branding, or unique messaging.

An A/B test will work well to give you data on user behaviour. It’ll give you primary data that shows you things a questionnaire won’t. Heat Mapping tools are also an excellent way to get results based on the data you’re collecting.

In some cases this will be a lot of work, involving massive amounts of data. That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it - even if someone has done similar research in the past. However, it’s a good idea to find out what results other companies have had. This can help tweak your data analysis strategy, so you can get the best results possible.

The three types of market research

Now is also the time to consider what kind of research is right for you based on the data you want to collect. There are three types of market research : causal, descriptive and exploratory.

• Causal - This research methodology is the most specific, and usually involves a field test or an experiment. This kind of research helps find a cause between two different things. For example, you might ask whether the placement of your call to action impacts how many sales you make.
• Descriptive - Do you need detailed information about a certain topic? If so, then descriptive research will be the right solution. This research helps measure topics of interest, usually in a quantitative manner. For example, you may use an online survey to gauge customer satisfaction.
• Exploratory - If your issue isn’t well understood or defined, you’ll need exploratory research. It helps narrow your focus, gain larger insights, and work through the basics before moving forward. Common exploratory market research techniques include interviews, secondary data and focus groups.

Prepare and create your research instrument

Now you have enough information to start designing a research tool. Maybe you want to create an online survey? In that case, it’s the time to start creating your questionnaire or selecting what kind kind of respondents you’re after.

product research survey

Feel like a focus group is a better option? Then you’ll have to come up with material for the moderator and prepare questions for the group interview. Think about the method you plan to use, and start getting things ready so you can progress.

But before you get off and running with your research, it’s good practice to test the tool using a small group first. This will give you additional insights into whether your choice of research fits well with the kind of results you’re after.

Once you have the sample data, place it in an Excel spreadsheet and look for anything that seems off. By doing this you can identify problems early, and guide your decision making before diving deeper into the market research process.

There are a few things to keep in mind when creating a research instrument, especially if it’s a survey. Follow the “rules” below for the best results:

• Make sure it’s simple for respondents to take part.
• Ensure each question is short and to the point.
• Offer instructions for each type of question you ask.
• Start with general questions and work towards specific queries.
• Ensure the questionnaire looks good and is easy to read.
• Pre-test it to check everything makes sense.

Start collecting relevant data

Most market research data you’ll be collecting will be numbers (quantitative) rather than observations (qualitative). However, doing both quantitative and qualitative research can be useful to get the most comprehensive results.

Sure, as a general rule quantitative data might be more practical, but combining the two gives you the best of both worlds. Then you can make sure your solution is flawless.

For example, if you’re considering new tiers of pricing for items on your website, an A/B test will give you sufficient data. But you could also interview customers to find out if a new pricing tier is something they would approve.

If your audience sample size is too small, or you don’t have enough customers to get useful data from an interview, an innovative technique is to use an influencer marketing campaign on social media for your market research.

Try to make sure that the data collected is unbiased and valid. Questions should be as neutral as possible, and incorporate both closed-ended and open-ended styles to get additional information. This can include yes or no questions, multiple-choice questions, and questions that customers can answer with contextual information.

Analyze the data and report the findings

Once you have all the information needed for your marketing research process, it’s time to analyze what that data means. While some data might immediately stand out, looking for trends is an important piece of the puzzle. Try to avoid looking for patterns based on your own assumptions - approach your research as objectively as possible.

It’s a good idea to create a research study summary explaining what process you used, the results you got, and what conclusions you came to. This can mean incorporating a written report outlining the steps that you plan to take based on the data you collected.

Even if this isn’t a formal requirement of your business, it’s a useful practice to ensure you review the results properly and can share which action should be taken and why.

Simply providing data and charts you gathered doesn’t create an action plan.

When you’re presenting your research, make sure to include answers, insights and any recommendations you have. Tables and charts can be included, but make sure there’s good reason for them to be there.

Take the time to add outcomes and suggestions on actions to take as a result of what you have learned. You could even create simple graphics with a free online tool. It makes your research feel more meaningful and makes the path to improvement much easier to visualize.

Take the research and move forward into action

The research is done. Now you can take some time to enjoy a well-deserved pat on the back. However, you’re not done working just yet. Once you have a solution to whatever issue you were dealing with, you have to take action to fix it.

Now is the time to start developing your marketing campaigns and strategies. Test each option and get started. And keep in mind that just because you’re done with this market research project, it doesn’t mean you won’t have to do more in the future.

As we mentioned earlier, the business world’s problems and trends change regularly. That’s why consistent research is so important. The data and insights you received in this phase of research will evolve as time goes on - it’s critical to constantly analyze data over time to continue improving.

The techniques at your disposal will evolve as you learn about the industry, your specific buyer personas, and your company as a whole. When you take all of these things into consideration, it should be clear why businesses should spend more money and time on market research, rather than cutting down when times get a little tough.

These six steps to building a successful marketing research process will set you on the right path to making the most of your business. Just remember that you can always dive deeper to improve your marketing campaigns.

Don’t be afraid to branch out and try new things as they become available. The most important thing is having a system that helps rather than hinders your company - so get out there and get started today.

Neal Schaffer is an authority on helping innovative businesses digitally transform their sales and marketing. Founder of the digital marketing consultancy PDCA Social, Neal also teaches at Rutgers Business School and the Irish Management Institute.

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Home » Marketing Management » Marketing Research – Definition, Importance and Process

Marketing Research – Definition, Importance and Process

Definition of marketing research.

Marketing research is a key to the evolution of successful marketing strategies and programmes. It is an important tool to study buyer behavior, changes in consumer lifestyles and consumption patterns, brand loyalty and forecast market changes. Research is also used to study competition and analyze the competitor product’s positioning and how to gain competitive advantage . Recently, marketing research is being used to help create and enhance brand equity .

According to Philip Kotler , Marketing research is systematic problem analysis, model building and fact finding for the purposes of important decision making and control in the marketing of goods and services.

The important decision making related to market strategy and other tasks related to marketing depends on findings or marketing research. Marketing research process reduces the chances of errors, miss conceptions and uncertainty from decision making process . It is therefore very important to conduct marketing research to identify any changes in market environment, and understand customers and market. It means that this is the process of strategically importance.

Importance of Marketing Research

Marketing research is a systematic collection and analysis of data about market and the important quality of market. Therefore, Market research is an extremely part of any business that wants to offer products or service that are focused and well targeted. It also affects the profit of a business and makes the best return on marketing investment. For example, a product’s price elasticity research can help you to find out the true or correct information that impact of an increased price on the sales and the profits of a product. This special importance give on profitability also helps the company’s focus to shift from widen the sales to increase the profits of a company and helps the company to survive longer.

Research is about finding and gathers the information to learn about something that is not fully known. Marketing research is allows company to discover the facts whether customers or consumers is satisfy with it. And it also provides crucial information that may be affecting the business. In addition, Market research will also minimize the risk as it can help to shape a new product or service, and identifying what is needed and ensure that the development of a product is high level focused towards needs and wants.

Furthermore, market research also helps to identify opportunities. For example, if there is a plan to operate a new service and would like to have enough information or experience of the people’s attitudes then the market research can give not only evaluating new idea but also identify the areas where a marketing needs to develop and improve. To survive in competition of markets is not easily especially markets has been throughout the world. Marketing research helps to find out the true or correct information and understand the competitor such as their identity, the marketing network, what is customer focus on and the range of level operations. Other than that, with market research can also helps to understand the consumer needs that have not been met. Target markets is also one of the important points that marketers should take notes with, from marketing research it helps to decide the target markets and provide customer information in terms of their location, age, gender and buying behavior.

Besides that, marketing research helps to create benchmarks and prepare the plans carefully and take necessary measures and give opinion of the amount, value or quality for its performance. Moreover, marketing research is system that has been give devise more effective strategies. The most useful of marketing research is help to identify the potential problems and give ample time to discover the facts and to calculate an effective solution.

Marketing Research Process

There are seven steps in marketing research process: define the research problem, determine the research design, choose the method for collecting primary data, design the sample, collect the data, analyze and interpret the data, prepare the research report. Though those steps, marketers will make conversant decisions or reduce the risk of their decisions.

1. PROBLEM DEFINITION

This is the starting point in the marketing research exercise. Invariably, in any enterprise, there are several marketing issues that may require examination, and invariably every decision maker perceives his information need as being the most important. In problem definition it is important to be specific, avoiding ambiguities and generalities. Care should also be taken, not to define problems in too narrow a field as that may distract the researcher’s perspective. This may even affect creativity in the research.

2. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

Once the problem is defined, the next logical step is to state what the researcher wants to achieve. This statement is called objectives. To be meaningful and help focus the researcher’s attention, these objectives should be specific, attainable & measurable. The purpose of these objectives is to act as a guide to the researcher and help him in maintaining a focus all through the research.

3. RESEARCH DESIGN

The third stage in the marketing research process is deciding on the research design. There are three types of research designs, namely:

• Exploratory: This kind of research is conducted when the researcher does not know how & why a certain phenomenon occurs, for example, how does the consumer evaluate the quality of a bank or a hotel or an airline? Since the prime goal of an exploratory research is to know the unknown, this research is unstructured. Focus groups, interviewing key customer groups, experts and even search for printed or published information are some common techniques.
• Descriptive: This research is carried out to describe a phenomenon or market characteristics. For example, a study to understand buyer behavior & describe characteristics of the target market is a descriptive research. Continuing the above example of service quality, a research done on how consumers evaluate the quality of competing service institutions can be considered as an example of descriptive research.
• Causative:  This kind of research is done to establish a cause and effect relationship, for example the influence of income & lifestyle on purchase decision. Here the researcher may like to see the effect of rising income & changing lifestyle on consumption of select products.

4. SOURCES OF DATA

Once the research design has been decided upon, the next stage is that of selecting the sources of data. Essentially there are two sources of data or information- secondary & primary

• Secondary data: This refers to the information that has been collected earlier by someone else. Often this includes printed or published reports, news items, industry or trade statistics etc. this also includes internal documents like invoices, sales reports, payment history of customers etc. these are important to the researcher as they provide an insight to the problem. Often the preliminary investigation is restricted to secondary data.
• Primary data: To overcome the limitations of incompatibility, obsolescence and bias, the researcher turns to the primary data. This is also resorted to when the secondary data is incomplete. Primary sources refer to data collected directly from the market place- customers, traders & suppliers often are the major sources. They are often reliable data sources and help in overcoming limitations of secondary data. The problem in primary data is its cost, both In terms of money & time, and often a researcher bias also creeps in.

5. DATA COLLECTION

The researcher is now ready to take the plunge. But still he or she needs to be clear about the following.

Procedure for data collection.

Data can be collected through any or combination of the following techniques.

• Observation: This technique involves observing how a customer behaves in the shopping area, how he or she dresses up & what does the customer say when he or she sees the product.
• Experimentation: This is a technique that involves experimenting new product ideas, advertising copies & campaigns, sales promotion ideas & even pricing & distribution strategies with the target customer group. These experiments can be conducted in an uncontrolled environment or in a controlled & simulated market environment.

Tools for data collection

The researcher has to decide on the appropriate tool for data collection. These tools are:-

• Questionnaire — used for the survey method
• Interview schedule — used mainly for exploratory research
• Association test — primarily used in qualitative research, also called as TAT (Thematic Apperception Test)

6. DATA ANALYSIS

The next stage is that of data analysis .It is important to understand raw data has no usage in marketing research .hence appropriate analytical tools must be used. The most elementary is the arithmetic analysis using percentile and ratios. Statistical analysis like mean, median, mode, percentages, standard deviation and coefficient of correlations should be used wherever applicable

7. REPORT & PRESENTATION

The last stage is that of writing out a report and making a presentation to the Decision —maker. It is important that the report has summary, called the executive summary, giving a bird’s-eye view of the research. This is because most senior managers have little time for going through the entire report in depth. The executive summary can direct the reader’s attention to specific issues by turning to the relevant sections in the report and should not exceed thousand words.

The report should be structured and pages chronologically numbered generally, the structure of a good repot is somewhat like the following:

• Introduction to the problem
• Marketing research finding or survey findings
• Interpretation of research finding
• Policy implications

Related posts:

• Importance of Marketing Research in Marketing Process
• Market Research – Definition, Classification and Process
• International Marketing Research – Definition, Categories and Process
• Marketing Strategy: Definition and Process
• Methods of Marketing Research
• Are Market Research and Marketing Research the Same?
• Relationship Between Marketing Research and Marketing Strategy
• The Importance of Advertising in Marketing Communication
• Introduction to Marketing Research
• Motivation – Definition, Process, Types, Features and Importance

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Module 13: Marketing Function

The marketing research process, learning outcomes.

• Explain the process and goal of market research
• Explain how market research helps marketers validate their target markets

Marketing research is a useful and necessary tool for helping marketers and an organization’s executive leadership make wise decisions. Carrying out marketing research can involve highly specialized skills that go deeper than the information outlined in this module. However, it’s important for any marketer to be familiar with the basic procedures and techniques of marketing research.

It’s very likely that at some point a marketing professional will need to supervise an internal marketing research activity or to work with an outside marketing research firm to conduct a research project. Managers who understand the research function can do a better job of framing the problem and critically appraising the proposals made by research specialists. They are also in a better position to evaluate their findings and recommendations.

Periodically marketers themselves need to find solutions to marketing problems without the assistance of marketing research specialists inside or outside the company. If you are familiar with the basic procedures of marketing research, you can supervise and even conduct a reasonably satisfactory search for the information needed.

Click on the image for a larger view.

Step 1: Identify the Problem

The first step for any marketing research activity is to clearly identify and define the problem you are trying to solve. You start by stating the marketing or business problem you need to address and for which you need additional information to figure out a solution. Next, articulate the objectives for the research: What do you want to understand by the time the research project is completed? What specific information, guidance, or recommendations need to come out of the research in order to make it a worthwhile investment of the organization’s time and money?

It’s important to share the problem definition and research objectives with other team members to get their input and further refine your understanding of the problem and what is needed to solve it. At times, the problem you really need to solve is not the same problem that appears on the surface. Collaborating with other stakeholders helps refine your understanding of the problem, focus your thinking, and prioritize what you hope to learn from the research. Prioritizing your objectives is particularly helpful if you don’t have the time or resources to investigate everything you want.

To flesh out your understanding of the problem, it’s useful to begin brainstorming actual research questions you want to explore. What are the questions you need to answer in order to get to the research outcomes? What is the missing information that marketing research will help you find? The goal at this stage is to generate a set of preliminary, big-picture questions that will frame your research inquiry. You will revisit these research questions later in the process, but when you’re getting started, this exercise helps clarify the scope of the project, whom you need to talk to, what information may already be available, and where to look for the information you don’t yet have.

Marketing Research for Bookends

Your uncle Dan owns an independent bookstore called Bookends, and it’s not doing very well. (That’s you in the picture.) The store’s sales are down, and the rent is going up. Dan has turned to you for help, since you know a thing or two about marketing.

You need a lot of information if you’re going to help your uncle turn things around, so marketing research is a good idea. You begin by identifying the problem and then work to set down your research objectives and initial research questions:

Step 2: Develop a Research Plan

Once you have a problem definition, research objectives, and a preliminary set of research questions, the next step is to develop a research plan. Essential to this plan is identifying precisely what information you need to answer your questions and achieve your objectives. Do you need to understand customer opinions about something? Are you looking for a clearer picture of customer needs and related behaviors? Do you need sales, spending, or revenue data? Do you need information about competitors’ products, or insight about what will make prospective customers notice you? When do you need the information, and what’s the time frame for getting it? What budget and resources are available?

Once you have clarified what kind of information you need and the timing and budget for your project, you can develop the research design. This details how you plan to collect and analyze the information you’re after. Some types of information are readily available through  secondary research and secondary data sources. Secondary research analyzes information that has already been collected for another purpose by a third party, such as a government agency, an industry association, or another company. Other types of information need to come from talking directly to customers about your research questions. This is known as primary research , which collects primary data captured expressly for your research inquiry.   Marketing research projects may include secondary research, primary research, or both.

Depending on your objectives and budget, sometimes a small-scale project will be enough to get the insight and direction you need. At other times, in order to reach the level of certainty or detail required, you may need larger-scale research involving participation from hundreds or even thousands of individual consumers. The research plan lays out the information your project will capture—both primary and secondary data—and describes what you will do with it to get the answers you need. (Note: You’ll learn more about data collection methods and when to use them later in this module.)

Your data collection plan goes hand in hand with your analysis plan. Different types of analysis yield different types of results. The analysis plan should match the type of data you are collecting, as well as the outcomes your project is seeking and the resources at your disposal. Simpler research designs tend to require simpler analysis techniques. More complex research designs can yield powerful results, such as understanding causality and trade-offs in customer perceptions. However, these more sophisticated designs can require more time and money to execute effectively, both in terms of data collection and analytical expertise.

The research plan also specifies who will conduct the research activities, including data collection, analysis, interpretation, and reporting on results. At times a singlehanded marketing manager or research specialist runs the entire research project. At other times, a company may contract with a marketing research analyst or consulting firm to conduct the research. In this situation, the marketing manager provides supervisory oversight to ensure the research delivers on expectations.

Finally, the research plan indicates who will interpret the research findings and how the findings will be reported. This part of the research plan should consider the internal audience(s) for the research and what reporting format will be most helpful. Often, senior executives are primary stakeholders, and they’re anxious for marketing research to inform and validate their choices. When this is the case, getting their buy-in on the research plan is recommended to make sure that they are comfortable with the approach and receptive to the potential findings.

A Bookends Research Plan

You talk over the results of your problem identification work with Dan. He thinks you’re on the right track and wants to know what’s next. You explain that the next step is to put together a detailed plan for getting answers to the research questions.

Dan is enthusiastic, but he’s also short on money. You realize that such a financial constraint will limit what’s possible, but with Dan’s help you can do something worthwhile. Below is the research plan you sketch out:

Step 3: Conduct the Research

Conducting research can be a fun and exciting part of the marketing research process. After struggling with the gaps in your knowledge of market dynamics—which led you to embark on a marketing research project in the first place—now things are about to change. Conducting research begins to generate information that helps answer your urgent marketing questions.

Typically data collection begins by reviewing any existing research and data that provide some information or insight about the problem. As a rule, this is secondary research. Prior research projects, internal data analyses, industry reports, customer-satisfaction survey results, and other information sources may be worthwhile to review. Even though these resources may not answer your research questions fully, they may further illuminate the problem you are trying to solve. Secondary research and data sources are nearly always cheaper than capturing new information on your own. Your marketing research project should benefit from prior work wherever possible.

After getting everything you can from secondary research, it’s time to shift attention to primary research, if this is part of your research plan. Primary research involves asking questions and then listening to and/or observing the behavior of the target audience you are studying. In order to generate reliable, accurate results, it is important to use proper scientific methods for primary research data collection and analysis. This includes identifying the right individuals and number of people to talk to, using carefully worded surveys or interview scripts, and capturing data accurately.

Without proper techniques, you may inadvertently get bad data or discover bias in the responses that distorts the results and points you in the wrong direction. The module on Marketing Research Techniques discusses these issues in further detail, since the procedures for getting reliable data vary by research method.

Getting the Data on Bookends

Dan is on board with the research plan, and he’s excited to dig into the project. You start with secondary data, getting a dump of Dan’s sales data from the past two years, along with related information: customer name, zip code, frequency of purchase, gender, date of purchase, and discounts/promotions (if any).

You visit the U.S. Census Bureau Web site to download demographic data about your metro area. The data show all zip codes in the area, along with population size, gender breakdown, age ranges, income, and education levels.

The next part of the project is customer-survey data. You work with Dan to put together a short survey about customer attitudes toward Bookends, how often and why they come, where else they spend money on books and entertainment, and why they go other places besides Bookends. Dan comes up with the great idea of offering a 5 percent discount coupon to anyone who completes the survey. Although it eats into his profits, this scheme gets more people to complete the survey and buy books, so it’s worth it.

Step 4: Analyze and Report Findings

Analyzing the data obtained in a market survey involves transforming the primary and/or secondary data into useful information and insights that answer the research questions. This information is condensed into a format to be used by managers—usually a presentation or detailed report.

Analysis starts with formatting, cleaning, and editing the data to make sure that it’s suitable for whatever analytical techniques are being used. Next, data are tabulated to show what’s happening: What do customers actually think? What’s happening with purchasing or other behaviors? How do revenue figures actually add up? Whatever the research questions, the analysis takes source data and applies analytical techniques to provide a clearer picture of what’s going on. This process may involve simple or sophisticated techniques, depending on the research outcomes required. Common analytical techniques include regression analysis to determine correlations between factors; conjoint analysis to determine trade-offs and priorities; predictive modeling to anticipate patterns and causality; and analysis of unstructured data such as Internet search terms or social media posts to provide context and meaning around what people say and do.

Good analysis is important because the interpretation of research data—the “so what?” factor—depends on it. The analysis combs through data to paint a picture of what’s going on. The interpretation goes further to explain what the research data mean and make recommendations about what managers need to know and do based on the research results. For example, what is the short list of key findings and takeaways that managers should remember from the research? What are the market segments you’ve identified, and which ones should you target?  What are the primary reasons your customers choose your competitor’s product over yours, and what does this mean for future improvements to your product?

Individuals with a good working knowledge of the business should be involved in interpreting the data because they are in the best position to identify significant insights and make recommendations from the research findings. Marketing research reports incorporate both analysis and interpretation of data to address the project objectives.

The final report for a marketing research project may be in written form or slide-presentation format, depending on organizational culture and management preferences. Often a slide presentation is the preferred format for initially sharing research results with internal stakeholders. Particularly for large, complex projects, a written report may be a better format for discussing detailed findings and nuances in the data, which managers can study and reference in the future.

Analysis and Insights for Bookends: Target market validation

Getting the data was a bit of a hassle, but now you’ve got it, and you’re excited to see what it reveals. Your statistician cousin, Marina, turns out to be a whiz with both the sales data and the census data. She identified several demographic profiles in the metro area that looked a lot like lifestyle segments. Then she mapped Bookends’ sales data into those segments to show who is and isn’t visiting Bookends. After matching customer-survey data to the sales data, she broke down the segments further based on their spending levels and reasons they visit Bookends.

Gradually a clearer picture of Bookends’ customers is beginning to emerge: who they are, why they come, why they don’t come, and what role Bookends plays in their lives. Right away, a couple of higher-priority segments—based on their spending levels, proximity, and loyalty to Bookends—stand out. The research has succeeded in segmenting the market into manageable targets. You and your uncle are definitely seeing some possibilities for making the bookstore a more prominent part of their lives. You capture these insights as “recommendations to be considered” while you evaluate the right marketing mix for each of the new segments you have now validated.

Step 5: Take Action

Once the report is complete, the presentation is delivered, and the recommendations are made, the marketing research project is over, right? Wrong.

What comes next is arguably the most important step of all: taking action based on your research results.

If your project has done a good job interpreting the findings and translating them into recommendations for the marketing team and other areas of the business, this step may seem relatively straightforward. When the research results validate a path the organization is already on, the “take action” step can galvanize the team to move further and faster in that same direction.

Things are not so simple when the research results indicate a new direction or a significant shift is advisable. In these cases, it’s worthwhile to spend time helping managers understand the research, explain why it is wise to shift course, and explain how the business will benefit from the new path. As with any important business decision, managers must think deeply about the new approach and carefully map strategies, tactics, and available resources to plan effectively. By making the results available and accessible to managers and their execution teams, the marketing research project can serve as an ongoing guide and touchstone to help the organization plan, execute, and adjust course as it works toward desired goals and outcomes.

It is worth mentioning that many marketing research projects are never translated into management action. Sometimes this is because the report is too technical and difficult to understand. In other cases, the research conclusions fail to provide useful insights or solutions to the problem, or the report writer fails to offer specific suggestions for translating the research findings into management strategy. These pitfalls can be avoided by paying due attention to the research objectives throughout the project and allocating sufficient time and resources to do a good job interpreting research results for those who will need to act on them.

Bookends’ New Customer Campaign

Your research findings and recommendations identified three segments for Bookends to focus on. Based on the demographics, lifestyle, and spending patterns found during your marketing research, you’re able to name them: 1) Bored Empty-Nesters, 2) Busy Families, and 3) Hipster Wannabes. Dan has a decent-sized clientele across all three groups, and they are pretty good spenders when they come in. But until now he hasn’t done much to purposely attract any of them.

With newly identified segments in focus, you and Dan begin brainstorming about a marketing mix to target each group. What types of books and other products would appeal to each one? What activities or events would bring them into the store? Are there promotions or particular messages that would induce them to buy at Bookends instead of Amazon or another bookseller? How will Dan reach and communicate with each group? And what can you do to bring more new customers into the store within these target groups?

Even though Bookends is a real-life project with serious consequences for your uncle Dan, it’s also a fun laboratory where you can test out some of the principles you’re learning in your marketing class. You’re figuring out quickly what it’s like to be a marketer.

Well done, rookie!

Practice Questions

• Revision and Adaptation. Authored by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Practice Questions. Authored by : Robert Danielson. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Chapter 3: Marketing Research: An Aid to Decision Making, from Introducing Marketing. Authored by : John Burnett. Provided by : Global Text. Located at : http://solr.bccampus.ca:8001/bcc/file/ddbe3343-9796-4801-a0cb-7af7b02e3191/1/Core%20Concepts%20of%20Marketing.pdf . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Urban life (Version 2.0). Authored by : Ian D. Keating. Located at : https://www.flickr.com/photos/ian-arlett/19313315520/ . License : CC BY: Attribution

Marketing Planning and Marketing Research

• First Online: 09 March 2023

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• Ralf T. Kreutzer 2  

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In this chapter, the reader learns to understand the importance of planning for companies, to apply different planning concepts, to recognize the importance of strategic business units, to distinguish between strategic and operational planning in their contents and their maturities, and to confidently master cognitive goals, tasks, and methods of marketing analysis in the context of marketing research.

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Kreutzer, R.T. (2023). Marketing Planning and Marketing Research. In: Practice-Oriented Marketing. Springer, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-39717-3_2

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