Marketing Research Notes

Marketing Research Midterm 1 Study Guide

Steps in the Marketing Research Process

1. define the problem

• market potential
• market share
• market characteristics
• sales analysis
• forecasting
• business trends

1. develop an approach to the problem
2. formulate a research design plan (considerations, imitations, budget)
3. do field work or collect data
4. preparing and analyzing data
5. presenting the data in a report

When do Conduct Market Research

Hiring Criteria/How to Select a Research Supplier

• reputation
• do they complete tasks on time
• ethical
• flexibility
• quality
• experienced in the market/similar projects
• technical and non-technical expertise
• communication

Research Should be:

-Systematic: Designed/organized in advanced

-Objective: Unbiased & Impartial

-Informational: Collects relevant data for decision-makers

-Targeted for Decision-Making: gathered/interpreted with goal of reducing uncertainty for decision-makers

Types:

• Problem Identification: Market Potential, Market Share, Forecasting
• Problem Solving: Segmentation, Pricing, Product

Ethical Considerations

1. Research Design

• do they follow your needs oppose to their needs
• using secondary data that is not relevant or has been gathered through questionable means
• disguising the purpose of the research
• soliciting unfair concessions from the researcher
• not maintaining anonymity
• embarrassing and stressing respondents
• using questionable measuring scales that skew reliability and validity
• designing overly long surveys
• using inappropriate sampling procedures and sample sizes     

1. Field Work

• increasing discomfort level of respondents
• following unacceptable field work procedures

1. Data Preparation and Analysis

• discarding unsatisfactory respondents
• using statistical techniques when the underlying assumptions are violated, interpreting the results and making wrong recommendations

1. Report Preparation and Presentation

• incomplete reports
• biased reports
• inaccurate reports

Chapter Two

Research Design

• delineates what data to collect and how to collect it

• type of information collected (consistent with project objectives)
• possible data sources
• the data collection procedure (accurate, economical and timely)

    Components

1. defines the information needed
2. designs the exploratory, descriptive and causal phases of research
3. specifies the measurement and scaling used
4. construct and pretests a questionnaire
5. specifies the sampling process and sample size
6. develop a plan of data analysis

Types of Research