Transcript Marketing Research

MARKETING RESEARCH
The Research Process
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Marketing Research: Definition and Purpose
• Many definitions of Marketing Research:
– “Marketing research is the systematic design, collection, analysis
and reporting of data and findings relevant to a specific marketing
situation facing the company.” [Philip Kotler
– “the systematic gathering, recording and analyzing of all data
about problems relating to the marketing of goods and services.”
[The American Marketing Association]
• Basic Purpose of Marketing Research
– Marketing research reduces uncertainty or error in decisionmaking. The information collected by conducting marketing
research is used for problem solving and decision making in
various areas of marketing.
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Marketing Research ...
Can help the marketing manager to:
(1) Identify and define marketing problems
and opportunities accurately;
(2) Understand markets and customers and
offer reliable prediction about them;
(3) Develop marketing strategies and actions
to provide a competitive edge; and refine
and evaluate them;
(4) Facilitate efficient expenditure of funds;
(5) Monitor marketing performance; and
(6)Improve the understanding of marketing
as a process.
Is important because of
• Rapid changing
marketing
environment;
• Need for up-to-date
information for
strategically
important areas;
• Importance of
research as an
integral part of
better operation.
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THE MARKETING INFORMATION SYSTEM AND
MARKETING RESEARCH
• Marketing research is not the only source of
information that marketing managers need in
making decisions.
• Information may also be generated by various
components of the Marketing Information System
(MIS) consisting of a series of interactive
components (Figure 1.1).
• There are four subsystems of the MIS: internal
reports, marketing intelligence, marketing
research, and marketing decision support.
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THE MARKETING INFORMATION SYSTEM
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
Internal
Reporting
System
Marketing
Intelligence
System
INFORMATION
Marketing
Managers
Assessment of
Needs
2. Distribution
Marketing
Environments
1.
An
Analytical
Marketing
System
Marketing
Research
System
Marketing Decisions and Communications
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When Marketing Research may not be necessary
• Marketing research is almost always problem-oriented.
Whether to conduct marketing research depends on the
manager’s experience and wisdom; nature of decision
situation [repetitive or atypical]; degree of uncertainty;
and the value and importance of the research.
• Marketing research may not be necessary if:
–
–
–
–
–
Information is available/outcomes known.
Insufficient time for marketing research.
Non-availability of resources.
Cost Vs Value of the Research.
Outcomes known.
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MAIN DIVISIONS OF
MARKETING RESEARCH
1. Market and Sales Research
2. Product Research
3. Price Research
4. Distribution (Place) Research
5. Promotion Research.
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Types of Marketing Research
Marketing Research
Research Based on
Purpose
Preliminary
Research Based on
Source of Data
Research Based on
Data Collection Method
Basic Research
Primary Research
Qualitative Research
Applied Research
Secondary Research
Quantitative Research
Conclusive
Performance
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Types of Research II
• Combinations of types such as applied qualitative
research, basic primary research are common
• A sample of questions commonly answered by
conducting primary applied research include:
– What price should we charge for our product?
– What distribution channels should be used?
– How well does the product match up with the competitor’s
product?
– How effective is the company’s advertising?
– How will the consumers receive this new product?
– What percentage of market penetration does Product X have?
– What is Product X’s image in the consumer’s mind?
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Qualitative Vs Quantitative Research
• Qualitative research involves collecting, analyzing, and
interpreting data by observing what people say or do.
– Uses a smaller number of individuals and ‘observes’ them for
a time span of between 1 and 2 hours. -----“soft approach”
• Quantitative research is the traditional mainstream of
marketing research.
– It is also called “survey research”. Involves the use of
questions and large number of respondents within a brief span
of time, say 15 to 45 minutes.
– Its purpose is very specific-- e.g. a nationwide survey on the
Road Pricing System for cars. The ‘hard approach’ to
marketing research.
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THE MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS
• Every research project is different and unique.
• However, research procedures and activities are
common and constitute the marketing research process .
• This process:
– is an well-organized sequence of ten steps involved in the
systematic collection and analysis of marketing data.
– provides a description of how a marketing investigation is
designed and implemented, and helps to guide the execution
of a research project.
– is interactive, a researcher may not follow the ten steps
exactly in the order presented here.
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Ten Steps in the Marketing Research Process
1. Define the Problem
2. Establish Research Objective
3. Determine Research Design
4. Identify Information Needs and Sources
5. Determine Methods of Data Collection
6. Design Instrument for Data Collection
7. Determine Sample Plan and Sample Size
8. Collect Data
9. Analyze Data
10. Prepare and Present Final Report
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Step 1: Define the research problem I
• The very first, and the most important step in research:
– “A problem well-defined is half solved”
– Nature of the problem determines the type of study to conduct.
– Symptoms, for example, declining sales, profit, market share,
or customer loyalty are not problems.
• A research problem must be accurately and precisely defined,
otherwise the task of designing a good research difficult.
• Marketing problems may be difficulty-related or
opportunity-related. For both, the prerequisite of
defining the problem is to identify and diagnose it.
– Conduct situation analysis. It provides the basic motivation and momentum for
further research.
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Step 1: Define the research problem II
• Get the right answer to the question:
– “What exactly does the firm want (or need) to know?”
•
The basic question to address is:
– “How to know that there is a problem?”
• Problems may become apparent from:
– deviation from the business plan, company records and
reports, customer complaints and grievances,
conversations with company employees, and observation
of inappropriate behavior or conditions in the firm;
– the success of the firm’s competitors, and published
materials reporting issues such as, changes in market or
environmental trends, new government regulations,
anticipated changes in the economy, etc.)
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Step 1: Define the research problem III
• Once the symptoms of a problem are detected..
– Conduct some initial fact finding to determine the nature of
the true problem.
– Talk to others about the problem and conducting a
preliminary literature search on the topic.
• In the initial stage, a problem may be recognized in a very
broad and general form only. This may restrict the
research program from being comprehensively designed.
• Both the researcher and the marketing manager (or the
research client ) need to work together to formulate the
problem into a precise and definite statement.
• This fact-finding exercise helps the researcher to refine
his educated guess to a more accurate problem
statement.
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Step 2: Establish Research Objectives
• “If you do not know what you are looking for, you won’t find it”
• Research objectives are related to and determined by the
problem definition. In establishing research objectives, the
researcher must answer the following questions:
i) What specific information should the project provide?
ii) If more than one type of information will be developed from
the study, which is the most important? and finally,
iii) What are the priorities?
• When specifying research objectives, development of hypotheses,
might be very helpful.
• When achieved, objectives provide the necessary information to
solve the problem.
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Step 3: Research Design
3. Research Design step involves the development of a
research plan for carrying out the study.
– There are a number of alternative research designs. The
choice will largely depend on the research purpose.
MARKETING RESEARCH
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
EXPLORATORY
Focus Group;
Observation;
Others.
QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
DESCRIPTIVE
Survey research
CAUSAL
Laboratory Experiment
Field Experiment
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Step 4: Specify the information required.
Step 5: Design the method of collecting the needed information.
4. After defining the
problem the
researcher must
determine what kind
of information will
best meet the research
objectives.
– Secondary
information
– Primary
information
5. Marketing research
information may be
collected in many ways:
– via mail, telephone, fax,
Internet, or personal
interview.
– using consumer
panels, consisting of
individuals who have
agreed to provide
purchasing and media
viewing behavior.
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Step 6: Design the questionnaire.
• A primary responsibilities of a marketing researcher
is to design the data collection instrument or
questionnaire in a manner so that it is easily
understood by the respondent and administered to
them.
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Step 7: Decide on the sampling design.
Step 8: Manage and implement the data collection.
• The researcher must determine the criteria that would
enable a respondent to take part in a study.
– The sampling design must result in the proper sample of
respondents being selected. Different sampling designs are
available to researchers.
• The researcher must properly manage and oversee the
data collection process.
– If interview method is used, the researcher must train
interviewers and develop procedures for controlling the quality of
the interviewing.
– [This is not necessary if survey methodology is used, where the
research instruments are completed by the respondents. ]
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Step 9:Analyze and interpret the results.
Step 10: Communicate the findings and implications.
• The ‘raw’ research data needs to be edited, tabulated
and analyzed to find the results and to interpret them.
– the method used may be manual or computer based.
– The analysis plan follows from the research objective of the
study.
– Association and relationships of variables are identified and
discussed in the light of the specific marketing problem.
• The researcher has to submit a written report and often
make an oral presentation to management or the client.
– In conducting all the marketing research activities; the marketing
researchers must adhere to ethical standards.
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Marketing Problems Versus Research Problems
• Not all marketing problems are researchable. To clearly
define a researchable problem,
– the researcher must define the scope of the problem during the
initial investigation, and try to determine probable cause-andeffect relationships between the variables by answering the
following questions:
• What is (are) the symptom(s) that indicate(s) that there is
(are) a problem (s)?
• What is (are) the likely cause(s) of the problem?
• What information will be needed to find a solution to the
problem?
• What possible course(s) of action may be taken if information
is available?
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Phrasing a Researchable Problem I
• A marketing problem that can be researched, must be
‘translated’ or written into a form that includes:
– A relationship between two (or among several) variables.
– Each variable is operationally defined,
– A population for the research is implied or identified.
• Consider the observation, “We need to find why our store’s
image seem to be have gone down?”
– This “problem” is not researchable because it does not clarify
• (I) the relationships that are described;
• (ii) how the conclusion seems to be have gone down? is reached,
and
• (iii) ‘gone down’ compared to what?
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Phrasing a Researchable Problem II
• This research problem suffers because the terms
are not specifically defined.
– When “image” is referred to, what does it mean? The
number of customer that frequent the store? The
number of complaints lodged by customers? The
store’s market share? Or what?
– Similarly, what does “gone down” actually mean? Is
it referring to reduction in the number of people
frequenting the store? Or what?
– Finally, what population is being implied? Does it
refer to all sales to all customers or particular types of
customers?
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Operational Definitions of a Variable
• It is a definition that is determined by the operations
needed to measure the variable in question.
• A term may not have only one, universal meaning.
– In the statement, “I want to buy a car”, the variable
‘car’ is not operationally defined.
• A car may mean, among others, a sedan, a sports car, a
pick-up or a mini van; it may also refer to an American, or
a Japanese built car. Hence just saying car could be
misleading.
• One must be specific as to what it exactly means.
Operational definitions reduce ambiguity.
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Variables and Constructs
• A “variable” is a factor that:
– (i) causes some other factor(s) to vary, and
– (ii) may assume different numerical values.
• Price is a variable since it can cause sales levels to vary and
may assume different numerical values.
• A “Construct” is a variables with special interpretation. Constructs
are concepts that are deliberately invented or adopted for a special
scientific purpose.
• In statistical analysis, a variable is generally identified by a symbol,
such as X or Y. If a researcher is using SPSS, or other computer
packages, he or she may use the name of the variable itself or its
abbreviated form e.g., ‘age’ ‘marstat’ (for marital status), ‘occupn’
(for occupation), etc.
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Classification of Variables
• 1.Categorical or Classificatory Variables:
– have a limited number of values, e.g., gender (male or Female) ,
marital status (married, single, widowed/ widower) etc.
• 2.Continuous variables:
– have an infinite number of values, e.g., temperature, sales in $ or
number, profit in $.
• 3. Dependent Variables:
– Variables expected to be predicted or explained.
• 4. Independent Variables:
– Variables that are expected to influence, predict or explain another.
For example, in the following relationship:
Income (I) = F (Age, Level of education),
Income is a dependent variable; Age and Level of education are
independent variables. An independent variable is something that the
researcher can control.
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Constructs Widely Used by
Marketing Researchers
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Marketing Constructs
Attitudes towards brands
Brand Awareness
Brand familiarity
Brand loyalty
Comprehension of
product benefits
Demographics
Past purchase or use
Psychographics
Purchase intention
Reach
Satisfaction
Operational definitions
Number of people with positive, negative or neutral feeling
Percent of respondents that have heard of the brand
Consumers that have tried or seen the brand
How many times the respondent bought (used) the product
Respondents opinion as to what the product does to them
Respondents’ age, sex, marital status etc.
Percent of respondents that bought(used) the product/service
How consumers think and behave
Number (%) of respondents planning to buy a product
The number (%) of households exposed to an advertisement
schedule during a given period of time.
How the respondents evaluate the performance of the
product or the service
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RESEARCH PROPOSAL I
• A research proposal
– a plan showing step by step description of how a proposed
research project will be undertaken.
– reflects the researcher’s understanding of the problem and
ability to conduct the research.
• If the research is to be conducted through a research
agency, the research proposal acts as an important
selection criterion.
– Upon its acceptance, the research proposal becomes the basis
for the contract or agreement between the research agency
and the client, and serves as a record of what was agreed on.
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RESEARCH PROPOSAL II
• There is no fixed or standard format for a research
proposal as it is dependent on the nature of the
specific research project. However, most research
proposals contain the following items.
–
–
–
–
–
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1. Introduction
2. Statement of the Marketing Problem
3. Specification of the Research Objectives
4. Details of the Proposed Research Plan
5. Time schedule
7. Research team
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