marketing research from customer insights to actions 02 23 2013 what is marketing research the process of defining a marketing problem and opportunity systematically collecting and analyzing information and recommending actions the challenge in doing good marketing research whatever the marketing issue involved whether discovering consumer tastes or setting the right price o will consumers really know whether they are likely to buy a product that they have never thought about before o when personal or status questions are involved will they say they will o will consumers buy the same brand they say they will marketing research must overcome these difficulties and obtain the information needed so that marketers can make reasonable estimates about what consumers want five step marketing research approach decision o a conscious choice from among two or more alternatives managers and researchers have tried to improve the outcomes of decision by using more formal structured approaches to decision making o the act of consciously choosing from among alternatives although the 5 step approach describes the focuses on marketing decisions it provides a systematic checklist for making both business and personal decision step 1 define the problem every marketing problem faces its own research challenges marketing research shows the two key elements of defining a problem o setting the research objectives o identifying possible marketing actions set the research objectives research objectives are specific measurable goals the decision marker seeks to achieve in conducting the marketing research in setting research objectives marketers have to be clear on the purpose of the research that leads to marketing actions three main types of marketing o exploratory research ideas about a relatively vague problem o descriptive research generally involves trying to find the frequency that something s occur or the extent of a relationship between two or more factors o causal research the most sophisticated tries to determine the extent to which the change in one factor changes another one identify possible marketing actions measure of success o criteria or standards used in evaluating proposed solutions to problems one test of whether marketing research should be done is if different outcomes will lead to different marketing actions marketing researchers know that defining a problem is an incredibly difficult task researchable o if objectives are too broad the problem may not be o if they are too narrow the value of the research results may be seriously lessened step 2 developing the research plan the second step in the marketing research process requires that the researcher o specify the constraints on the marketing research activity o identify the data needed for marketing actions o determine how to collect the data specify constraints constraints o the restrictions placed on potential solutions to a problem identify data needed for marketing actions often marketing research studies wind up collecting a lot of data that are interesting but irrelevant for marketing decisions that result in marketing actions determine how to collect data determining how to collect useful marketing research data is often as important as actually collecting the data two key elements in deciding how to collect the data o concepts o methods concepts concepts o are ideas about products or services to find out about consumer reaction to potential new product marketing researchers frequently develop new product concept o a picture or verbal description of a product or service the firm might offer for sale methods methods part of a problem special methods vital to marketing are o sampling o statistical inference o the approaches that can be used to collect data to solve all or marketing researches often use sampling by selecting a group of distributors consumers or prospects asking them questions and treating their answers as typical of those in whom they are interested they may then use statistical inference to generalize the results from the sample to much larger groups of distributors customers or prospects to help decide on marketing actions step 3 collect relevant information collecting enough relevant information to make a rational informed marketing decision sometimes simply means using your knowledge to decide immediately o at other times it entails collecting an enormous amount of information at great expense data secondary data o facts and figures related to a problem o facts and figures that have already been recorded before the project at hand secondary data is divided into two parts internal data external data primary data secondary data internal o facts and figures that are newly collected data for the project the internal records of a company generally offer the most easily accessible marketing information o thee internal sources of secondary data may be divided into 2 parts marketing inputs data related to the effort expended to make sales marketing outcomes data related to the results of marketing efforts secondary data external published data from outside the organization are external marketers use these data to identify characteristics and trends of secondary data ultimate consumers several market research companies pay households and businesses to record all their purchases using a paper or electronic diary o syndicated panel data economically answer questions that require consistent data collection over time some data services provide comprehensive information on household demographics and lifestyle product purchases TV viewing behavior and responses to coupon and free sample promotion o their advantage is that a single firm can collect analyze interrelate and present all this information trade associations universities and business periodicals provide detailed data of value to market researchers and planners advantages and disadvantages of secondary data a general rule among marketing people is to obtain secondary data firs and then collect primary data two important advantages of secondary data o the tremendous time savings because the data have already been collected and published or exist internally o the low cost such as a free or inexpensive census report disadvantages of secondary data o the secondary data may be out of date o the definitions of categories might not be right for a researchers project o the data may be collected for another purpose primary data watching people observing people and