Marketing Research

The Purpose of Marketing Research When someone stops you in a mall, or calls you on the phone, or sends you an to complete a survey, do you? Why or why not? What do you lose by doing it? What do you gain by doing it?

The Purpose of Marketing Research As a business manager, why should you do marketing research? Why is it one of the first areas cut from most corporate budgets in downtimes? Is it always necessary to do marketing research?

The Marketing Research Process 1. Formulate the problem 2. Specify the research design 3. Develop the methodology 4. Collect the data 5. Analyze the data 6. Present the results

The Process and Business Management 1. Formulate the problem – critical to doing effective research, but the problem may not always be evident. Sales are down – assumption is because of ineffective advertising, when in fact a competitor has a better sales strategy. Also set research objectives. Don’t jump to conclusions too quickly. Must be thick-skinned and willing to listen to other viewpoints.

The Process and Business Management 2. Specify the research design General method – general type of data. Will be determined in many cases by timing issues and budget issues. Basic types of data: primary, secondary, syndicated – what are they and what are their advantages and disadvantages? Basic methods: exploratory, descriptive, experimental – what are they and when do you use each type?

The Process and Business Management 3. Develop the methodology Must specify research details. How will you gather the data? – data collection instrument. What types exist? What are the pros and cons of various techniques? Who will you gather data from? – sampling techniques Remember to consider non-customers in your sampling procedures

The Process and Business Management 4. Collect the data 5. Analyze the data As business managers, the most critical tasks for you in these two steps are: Maintaining timing Maintaining costs Maintaining accuracy (are they doing it right?) I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE you to understand the concepts of significance testing and appropriateness of statistical techniques (not necessarily how to do them)

The Process and Business Management 6. Present the results Make sure you get what you want from the research and the data. Do you see all of the research objectives addressed? Do you understand the statistical analysis to your own satisfaction? Are there actionable recommendations? Do you have the information you need to convince your supervisor? Be careful – some research companies do a very good job with the other five steps, but simply don’t know how to do step six effectively. Also remember, statistics, graphs, and tables can be presented in ways to hide the truth – you want the truth.

Research Applications – what would you do? Your company operates 250 retail outlets across the US. You notice that your stores outside the southeast are not performing as well as your stores in the southeast. Who would you gather information from? What type of data would you want? How would you gather this information (method)?

Research Applications – what would you do? Your company manufactures and sells audio equipment to various distributors and retailers around the world. The company has a sales force of 600 people globally. You notice that 100 salespeople outperform the other 500 combined. What type of data would you want? Who would you gather information from? How would you gather this information?

Research Applications – what would you do? Your company’s current product line has a relatively strong position in its industry (50% share), but has seen a slow decline in sales, profit, and market share over the last five years. What is the problem here? What type of data would you gather? Who would you gather this information from? How would you gather this information?