“Marketing research is the systematic and objective identification, collection, analysis and dissemination of information for the purpose of assisting management in decision making related to the identification and solution of problems and opportunities in marketing” (Malhotra, Hall, Shaw and Oppenheim, 2002, p.11). It is an efficient, cost-effective management tool that gets marketers close to the consumer, customer and public through the relevant, accurate, reliable, valid and current information. The most common researches are measurement of market potential, market share, long-range forecasting and so forth (Kotler, Brown, Adam and Armstrong, 2004). Whether an organization does marketing research relied on its own research department or outside firms, it has to follow the marketing research process step by step.
Marketing research process
- Step 1 – defining the problem and research objectives
It is the marketing professionals, such as marketing research managers, marketing service managers and product managers, who first come into contact with marketing issue. Therefore, the problem defining is the process of identify the problems that happened in the organization (Malhotra et al., 2002). Marketing research problems encompass both problems and opportunities. From a managerial viewpoint, marketing problems represent opportunities for improving the firm. Sometimes these problems only relate to looking at how things the company does could be done in a better way. The research must be based on an accurate description of the desired outcome for the decision maker (Hamlin, 2000). The decision might be to change the product’s price in order to stimulate sales, or to develop a new product line to take advantage of a gap in the market (Malhotra et al., 2002).
The tasks involved in problem definition consist of discussions with the decision makers, interviews with industry experts and other knowledgeable individuals, reviews of existing information, analysis of secondary data and the qualitative research used in an exploratory way. The purpose of these activities is to help the researchers to define the background of the marketing research problem by analyzing the environmental context (Malhotra et al., 2002). Marketing research is to help organisations to better communicate with the consumers and therefore good communication should be first established between the marketing researcher and the decision maker as they are the ultimate user of the information. Talking to the experts and knowledgeable persons allows researchers bring all information about the background together in terms of their impact on the problem situation.
Once the problem has been carefully defined, the marketing research objectives have to be set. A marketing research project may have one of three types of objectives. Exploratory research is conducted to clarify and define the nature of ambiguous problem. Usually, exploratory research is conducted with the expectation that subsequent research will be required to provide such conclusive evidence (Zikmund, 2000). For example, most studies into the marketing research activities of organisations focused on service and manufacturing businesses, and none of the studies mentioned above on tourism organisations, a exploratory research was conducted in 2002 and the result showed that in 91 small travel agents in Melbourne approximately half the respondents had no employee assigned to marketing research. Thus, exploratory research might help crystallize a problem and identify information needed for future research ( and , 2002). Descriptive research is another type of research objectives. It is the research to describe the characteristics of the population and the phenomenon, such as consumer attitudes or market potential for a product. Causal research is conducted to identify cause-and-effect relationships among variables (Kotler et al., 2004).
- Step 2 – Designing the research
After the researcher has defined the research problem and research objectives, a framework for the research plan of action should be determined. This stage is called designing the research. The framework is formulated by selecting a basic research method (Zikmund, 2000). This contains determining the information needed, developing a plan for gathering information efficiently and presenting the research design to marketing management in the form of a plan that outlines sources of secondary data and points out the specific research approaches, contact channels, plans for sampling and the instruments for researchers to collect primary data (Kotler et al., 2004).
Firstly, the researcher must determine what specific information they need for the research based on the definition of the problem and the research objectives. These information might be involved in the area such as demographic, economic, consumer usage patterns, and lifestyle and so on (Kotler et al., 2004). To meet these required information, marketers begin with an exhaustive search of existing or secondary data. These include, for example, the use of internal databases and information systems, government documents, industry and trade association publications, news sources, published studies and articles, and internet sources (, 2001). Owing to the secondary data is for the purpose of other uses other than being collected for the specific problem at hand, marketers have to plan for collecting the primary data (Kotler et al., 2004).
Primary data may be quantitative or qualitative in nature. Quantitative research is a statistical tool that helps companies develop and market products that will succeed in the marketplace. It is used to establish statistically valid numerical data. Qualitative research is an unstructured, exploratory research method based on small samples intended to provide insights and understanding of the problem setting. It is used when a business needs to discover people's motivations and feelings. (Barson, 2003). Quantitative research has benefited to some extent from the increase of databases through direct marketing and the Internet. These have served to boost its ability to collect consumer data. While in qualitative research, agencies and companies are anxious to find better ways to understand the consumer's thought processes and motivation (Clarke, 2001). The complexity and competitiveness of the marketplace often requires the strength of both qualitative and quantitative research. Companies that combine the two have the advantage of generating more trust in the results, because they are confirmed by means of different data sources and methods. Another advantage of combining these two methods is that it creates new lines of thinking; it can cause fresh perspectives or even contractions to emerge (Barson, 2003).
In planning primary data collection, marketers have to make decisions about four areas: the research approach, sampling plan, contact method and research instruments (Kotler et al., 2004). Usually, marketers use observation, survey and experiment as the research approach. Observational research is the merely to record what can be observed, for example, the number of automobiles that pass by a proposed site for a gasoline station. This can be mechanically recorded or observed by humans (Zikmund, 2000). Survey is the most common method of gathering primary data. It is conducted under the quantitative research. Marketers use a structured questionnaire given to a sample of a population to obtain the specific information from the respondents. However, some researchers may not get useful information by asking meaningless questions (Passikoff, 2002). Sampling plan can also create problems. For instance, marketers now use more internet survey as a new research tool. There can be three different sampling units used in an Internet marketing survey: web pages, web sites and Internet Users. Also, there can be different sample size, sampling procedures, format and data collection methods employed in this research (Furrer and Sudharshan, 2001). The contact methods include mailing questionnaires, telephone interviewing, focus group interviewing and online survey methods. Under the qualitative method, it is invariably face-to-face, in small focus groups, where people are asked to give detailed answers and opinions. It can generate greater understanding of customers, with the potential to open up to a new audience.
- Step 3 – Implementing the research plan
Researchers then can enter into the net stage of marketing research: implementing the research plan. Marketers usually have two main options for collecting data: developing their own organizations or contracting with field work agencies (Malhotra et al., 2002). The organization keeps more control over the collection process and data quality by using its own staff, whereas, the outside agencies is more specialised in the research field and therefore can do better job than organisation’s own staff, and it is lower cost and more efficiently (Kotler et al., 2004). Therefore, management has to make the decisions on balancing the channels for collecting the data. This step in the whole marketing research is generally the most expensive and the most subject to error. The errors can be interview errors and non-response. A wrong sample of respondents or the wrong questions can easily lead to the errors (Malhotra et al., 2002).
- Step 4 – Interpreting and reporting the findings
The final step calls for marketers to analyse the collected the data, interpret them into comprehensive information and draw out a marketing research report about the findings for the decision makers. In this stage, marketers use many data analyzing techniques. Sometimes, statistically readjustment of data is required. This process is called weighting. The entire project should be documented in a written report which addresses the specific research questions identified, describes the approach, the research design, data collection and data analysis, procedures adopted, and presents the results and the major findings. All these useful information are essential for management’s decision making (Zikmund, 2000).
The most difficult step in marketing research
It is claimed by many marketers that a failed marketing research project can result in insufficient problem. Most market research texts state that the first job of a researcher is to identify the decision maker's problem. In practice this can be extremely difficult, as most decision makers are not willing to discuss their problems. Also, the abstracted and frequently personal nature of their problems does not usually lend itself easily to the formation of a deductively testable research proposition. It is generally much easier to start the discussion with the decision maker by attempting to identify the desired outcome of their decision, or what is required to eliminate the decision maker's problem. This approach has the advantage that decision maker is usually willing to discuss desired outcomes, as this is a positive subject (Hamlin, 2000). Further, surveys of the world’s largest consumer goods and services companies have revealed that better communication and more involvement in problem definition were the most frequently mentioned ways of improving the usefulness of research (Malhotra et al., 2002).
Problem definition is a creative act. We should identify a variety of alternative definitions and carefully consider each before one is finally accepted. However, the problem may be defined too broadly or too narrowly, even sometimes the management may ignore the important point and directly go to another direction. There is an example of a misdefined problem. The most popular brand of a French biscuit company, Biscuiterie Nantaise (BN), faced a major problem after many years of stable sales and profits, their sales had slipped two years earlier and then dropped significantly in the most recent year. Clearly something was wrong. The French management group noted that Prince, an aggressive national competitor, had initiated a heavy, new advertising campaign in the most recent year and its sales and share of market had risen. BN managers attributed BN weakness to Prince strength. As a result, they defined their problem as an advertising weight problem and asked for a significant increase in the BN advertising budget. In facts, the real problem is BN price relationships, relative to regional competitors, had been weakening for several years. BN had traditionally enjoyed a premium price. However this premium had shrunk year-by-year until it disappeared altogether two years earlier. Sales dropped only when Biscuiterie Nantaise stopped cutting BN price relative to the regional competitors. In sum, it was because BN relative price had been weakening for years, BN weakness was not a recent phenomenon-it was long standing (Gibson, 1998). Therefore, careful problem definition might have avoided the unnecessary cost and time on dong the useless research.
Conclusion
The marketing research is an efficient, cost-effective management tool for gathering information needed for decision making. The marketing research process involves four steps, they are defining the problem and research objectives, developing the research plan for collecting information, implementing the research plan and interpreting and reporting the findings. One of the most difficult steps in the whole process is defining the problem as the management may not willing to talk about the problems or the problems may be defined too broadly or too narrowly. Careful problem definition can avoid the unnecessary cost and time.
Reference List
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