Market Research slides 1

What is marketing research

the link between firm and market through information

Research purposes

1) basic research 2) applied research

Basic research

knowing for the sake of knowing, no immediate commercial objectives

Applied research

Answers specific questions (knowing for the sake of doing), has specific commercial objectives

when not to do marketing research

when the cost of information outweighs the value of information

market reserach process step 1

translate business problem into research questions

market reserach process step 2

design research program to answer research questions

market reserach process step 3

collect data

market reserach process step 4

analyze research results

market reserach process step 5

interpret research findings and make recommendations

market reserach process step 6

communicate recommendations to business audiences

iceberg: symptoms

unhappy customer, decreased market share, loss of sales, low traffic

iceberg: problems

low-quality products, marginal performance of sales force, inappropriate delivery system, unethical treatment of customers, poor image

management decision problem

choices to be made; what type of action is required to solve the business problem

market research problem

what type of information is needed to help the decision maker solve the business problem; information needed to make the outlined choice

promotion decision

influence of packaging/name/positioning on consumer acceptance

segmenting issue

what type of demographic, cultural, lifestyle factors influence product take-up (matching products to customers)

differentiation issue

how to achieve competitive differentiation in a crowded market place?

defining research problem

choose one main area of focus that addresses business problem (best target segment, optimal marketing mix, improve consumer acceptance, etc)

research objectives

more specific than research problem, identify unit of analysis and relevant key variables (clicks, product ratings, sales per week, etc)

types of applied research

programmatic, selective, evaluative

programmatic research

to get a market overview in order to develop marketing options; ongoing over time/monitoring something daily

selective research

test decision alternatives once options are identifies

evaluative research

to assess program performance (did our change work?)

types of marketing research

exploratory research, descriptive research, causal research

exploratory research

define problem/clarify alternatives, discover ideas/insights, used to formulate a problem and develop hypotheses

exploratory research types

informal research (talking to people, browsing online, etc.), secondary research (existing data to get context), qualitative research (conduct observation, user testing, focus groups, etc)

descriptive research

customer profiling, phenomenon patterns, market characteristics; determining non-causal association between marketing variables; can be used to make predictions (observation vs survey research)

causal research

determines cause-and-effect relationships, often AB/holdout testing (does political advertising increase (CAUSE) vote shares?) → experiments (prioritize internal vs. external validity)

exploratory summary

provides insights, use focus groups, in-depth interviews, secondary data

descriptive summary

to describe specific market characteristics, use observational studies, surveys, and secondary data

causal summary

to accurately determine cause-and-effect relationships, use experiments (maybe some secondary data techniques)