Chapter 3: Market Research

marketing research

= focused study of a specific problem or opportunity

• Suppliers of marketing research

  • Marketing research firms

  • Company owned research department

  • Universities, students, professors

Marketing information system

Combining marketing research and marketing information system

Marketing research process: 5 steps

1) Problem and objectives

2) Develop research plan

• Data sources

• Research approach

• Research instruments

• Sampling plan

• Contact methods

3) Collect the information

4) Analysis

5) Presentation

Marketing research process: Step 1: Problem & Objectives

• Too broadly ←> too narrowly

• Influences the cost of the research

• 3 types of research projects

  • Exploratory = preliminary data, explain the problem (Qualitative)

  • Descriptive = describe magnitutes (Quantitative)

  • Causal = test cause - effect

Marketing research process: Step 2: Develop the research plan: Data sources

Marketing research process: Step 2: Develop the research plan: Research approach

• Structured ←> not structured

• direct < - > indirect

Approaches

1) Observation

• Observe people / consumers

• Human or mechanical observers

2) Focus groups / Depth interviews

• Face to face, personal

• Moderated by trained interviewer

• Exploratory research

3) Survey research

• Quantitative research

• Descriptive research

4) Experimental research

• Cause and effect relationships

• Groups subjected to different treatments / conditions

Marketing research process: Step 2: Develop the research plan: Research instruments

• Questionnaire

  • people must understand the question

  • must be willing to answer

  • must be able to answer

    • know the answer

    • remember the answer

    • able to express it in words

• Mechanical instruments

  • virtual environment

  • eye camera / eye tracking

  • psychogalvanometer → around peoples wrist and measures the tension on your skin

  • traffic counter

Marketing research process: Step 2: Develop the research plan: Sampling

• Population = anyone who is a potentially valid participants to the study

• Sample = actual participants

• Non-probability sampling

  • Convenience sampling

  • Judgement sampling

• Probability sampling

  • Random sampling = complete frame and equal probability of being selected

  • Cluster sampling = heterogenous groups; random selection of clusters

    • Eg. random sample in a certain UGent home

  • Stratified sampling = homogenous groups = strata; random selection within each stratum

    • do a survey of only Indian people

• Practice

  • Lack of sampling frame = no list of population

  • Probability sampling impossible

  • Sample size = f(time, budget, rules of thumb)

Measurement scales

• Nominal / Dichotomous

  • Yes/No - Female/Male

• Ordinal / Ranking

  • Rank five attributes in order of importance

• Interval

  • equal intervals between scale points

  • What is your monthly spending on food (0-100, 101-200…)

• Ordinal by nature

  • How important is taste? 1-2-3-4-5

• Ratio

  • From the 10 L of soft drink, how many litres are brand X?

Specific attitude measurement scales

• Semantic differential

  • bipolar

  • poles with opposite meaning

  • Eg. bad quality ————————— good quality

• Likers = interval scale assessing the degree of agreement with statements

  • 1 (totally not agree), 2 (not agree), 3 (neutral), 4 (agree), 5 (strongly agree)

Marketing research process: Step 2: Develop the research plan: Contact methods

Marketing research process: Step 3: Collect information

field work

Marketing research process: Step 4: Analyse the information

• prepare the data

• prepare data sheet

• data input

• data processing

• interprete the results

Marketing research process: Step 5: Present the findings

• written report

• oral presentation

What is a good marketing research

• uses scientific and valid methods

• follows a creative approach

• uses multiple methods

• uses models and data that are interdependent

• provides a good value to cost ratio