The marketing research process

Marketing managers must be careful not to define the problem too broadly or too narrowly for the marketing research.
Management needs to set specific research objectives.
Types of research * Explanatory: its goal is to shed light on the real nature of the problem and to suggest possible solutions or new ideas. * Descriptive: it seeks to quantify demand. * Causal: its purpose is to test a cause-and-effect relationship

Develop the most efficient plan for gathering the needed information and what that will cost.

The researcher can gather data from various sources. * Secondary data: collected for another purpose and already exist somewhere. * Primary data: freshly gathered for a specific purpose.
Research is usually started through secondary data to see whether they can wholly or partly solve the problem without collecting costly data.

Primary data is collected in five main ways.
Observational research: gather fresh data by observing the relevant actors and settings unobrusively as they shop. * Ethnographic research: uses tools from anthropology to provide deep cultural understanding of how people live.
Focus group research: a gathering of 6 to 10 people carefully selected and brought together to discuss various topics of interest. * Participants are normally paid a small sum for attending. * A moderator provides questions and probes the discussion.
Survey research: companies undertake surveys to assess people's knowledge, beliefs, preferences and satisfaction. * Many are done online.
Behavioral research: Customers leave traces of their purchasing behavior in store scanning data. * Actual purchases reflect customers' preferences and often are more reliable than statements they offer to market researchers.
Experimental research: Designed to capture cause and effect relationships by eliminating competing explanations of the observed findings. * It is the most scientifically valid.

Questionnaires: a set of questions presented to responders. * Close-end questions specify all the possible answers and provide answers that are easier to interpret and tabulate. * Open-end questions allow respondents to answer in their own words and often reveal more about how people think
Qualitative measures: relatively unstructured measurement approaches that permit a range of possible responses * Because of the freedom, it can often be a useful first step in exploring consumers' perceptions. * Some other qualitative measures are: * Word associations: ask subjects what words come to mind when they hear the brand's name. * Projective techniques: give people an incomplete stimulus and ask them to complete it. * Visualization: requires people to create a collage to depict their perceptions. * Brand personification: ask subjects what kind of person they think of when the brand is mentioned. * Laddering: a series of increasingly more specific "why" questions can reveal consumer motivation and more deeper goals.
Technological devices: * Galvanometers: measure emotions aroused by a specific picture * Tachistoscope: flashes an ad to a participant, who is then asked to describe the image * Skin sensors, brain wave scanners, full body scanners

Three decisions need to be made: * Sampling unit: Whom should we survey? * Sample size: How many people should we survey? * Sampling procedure: How should we choose the respondents?

Mail contacts: mail questionnaire is one way to reach people who would not give personal interviews.
Telephone contacts: telephone interviewing is a good method for gathering information quickly and clarify questions.
Personal contacts: it's the most versatile method, but also the most expensive. Other qualitative information can be recorded, such as body language. * Arranged interviews: marketers contact respondents for an appointment. * Intercept interviews: researchers stop people at a shopping mall or busy street.
Online contacts: the Internet offers many ways to do research. * Advantages * Inexpensive * Fast * People tend to be honest and thoughtful * Versatile * Disadvantage * Samples can be small and skewed * Online communities can suffer from excessive turnover * Technological problems and inconsistencies

The data collection phase is generally the most expensive and most prone to error. * One of the biggest obstacles is the need to achieve consistency.

Extract findings by tabulating the data and developing summary measures.
Compute averages and measures of dispersion and apply statistical techniques and decision models.

The researcher presents findings relevant to the major marketing decisions facing management.
Research findings should be presented in an understandable and compelling way.

The findings support the final decision.
Marketing decision support system: a coordinated colection of data, systems, tools, and techniques, by which an organization gathers and interprets relevant information from business and environment and turns it into a basis for marketing action.

Some companies fail to use marketing research correctly. * They may provide the wrong problem. * They may have unrealistic expectations.