Ho Cao Viet (PhD)

MARKETING INTELLIGENCE

To learn the steps in the marketing research process.

To understand how the steps in the marketing research process are interrelated and that the steps may not proceed in order.

To be able to know when market research may be needed and when it may not be needed.

To know which step is the most important in the marketing research process.

1. Establish the need for the marketing research.

2. Define the problem.

3. Establish research objectives.

4. Determine the research design.

5. Identify information types and sources.

6. Determine the methods of accessing data.

7. Design data collection forms.

8. Determine sample plan and size.

9. Collect data.

10. Analyze data.

11. Prepare and present the final research report.

Figure 1.1: Eleven Steps in the Marketing Research Process.

Few comments about the process: 1. It is rare in practice a research project

follows all the exact steps. Research is an interactive process where a

researcher by discovering something may move forward or backwards in the process.

2. May not involve every step shown The research problem may be resolved, for

example by a review of secondary data, thereby eliminating the need to determine a sample plan or size.

3. What’s important is although every research project is different, there are enough commonalities to follow the eleven steps of marketing research.

A good monitoring system will alert the marketing manager to a problem that can be attacked by marketing research.

Regardless of the monitoring system used a good monitoring system constantly searches for hints that the companies marketing mix may be out of “sync” in the market place.

Marketing research may not be needed Information is already available

There is insufficient time for marketing research

Resources are not available

Costs outweigh the value of the research

Defining the problem is the single most important step in the marketing research process.

Often studies are commissioned without a clear understanding of the problem that needs to be addressed.

Exploratory research is needed to define the problem so research may be conducted.

Problem definition involves: 1. Specifying the symptoms

2. Itemising the possible causes of the symptoms

3. Listing the reasonable alternative courses of action that the marketing manager can undertake to solve the problem.

Research objectives identify what

specific pieces of information are

necessary to solve the problem at hand.

Research objectives step is the

specification of the specific types of

information useful to the managers as

they grapple for a solution to the

marketing problem at hand.

There are three types of research design: 1. Exploratory Research Design - is defined as

collecting information in an unstructured and informal manner. Examples: Reading periodicals, visiting competitors premises, examine company sales and profits vs. industry sales and profit, clipping service.

2. Descriptive Research Design - refers to a set of methods and procedure that describe marketing variables. Portray these variables by answering who, what, why and how questions. example: consumer attitude survey to your companies services.

3. Casual Research Design – designs allow us to isolate causes and their effects. Casual research is conducted by controlling various

factors to determine which factor is causing the problem. By changing one factor, say price, we can monitor its

effect on a key consequence, such as sales. In other words, casual design allows us to determine causality, or which variable is causing another variable to change.

Basically two types of data information

available to a marketing researcher:

A. Secondary data – as it name implies,

refers to information that has been

collected for some other purpose.

B. Primary data - refers to information

that has been gathered specifically to

serve the research objectives at hand.

Once the researcher has determined which type or types of information are needed, he or she must determine methods of accessing data.

Methods of accessing external secondary data have improved over the last five years: Information processing technology. Easy and Quick retrieval. Internal data- company reports, salespersons,

executives, MIS and other information sources.

There are several different methods of collecting primary data including: Telephone surveys Mail surveys Door-to-door interviews Mall-intercept studies New data collection methods are emerging.

Questionnaires and observation forms must be designed with great care.

Questionnaires – which record the information communicated by respondents or the respondent’s behavior as observed by the researcher

Structured Questionnaires - list questions that have pre-specified answer choices.

Unstructured questionnaires – have open ended questions and/or questions that are asked based on a response.

Disguised-true object of the study is not identified.

Undisguised- respondent is made fully aware of the purpose/or sponsor of the survey.

A sample plan identifies who is to be sampled

and how to select them for study.

A sample element refers to a unit of the entity

being studied.

A sample Frame is a list from which the

sample elements are drawn for the sample.

A sample plan specify how to draw the sample

elements from the sample plan.

Methods are available to help the researcher

determine the sample size required for the

research study.

Data collection is usually done by trained interviewers who are employed by field data collection companies to collect primary data.

Being ware of errors that may occur is important.

Non-sampling Errors are attributable to factors other than sampling errors.

Wrong sample elements to interview

Securing participants who refuse to participate

Not a home

Interviewing subjects who give the wrong information.

Hiring interviewers who cheat and fill out fictitious survey questionnaires.

Data analysis involves entering data into computer files, inspecting it for errors and running tabulations and various statistical tests.

Data cleaning – process by which the raw data are checked to verify that the data has been correctly inputted from the data collection form to the computer software program. Use SPSS

Coding – is the process of assigning all response categories a numerical value males=1, females=2.

Tabulation – which refers to the actual counting of the number of observations that fall into each possible response category.

Preparing the marketing research report

involves describing the process used,

building meaningful tables, and using

presentation graphics for clarity.

Preparing the SPSS software allows you

to prepare graphics to enhance your

written or oral presentation.

Virtually all market research projects are different.

Some are limited to review of secondary data; others require complex designs involving large scale collection of primary data.

Understand the eleven steps of the research process.

Steps can give researchers an overview of the entire research process.

Gives researchers a procedure to follow and a framework.

Many steps outlined are interactive and the researcher may decide which ones to use.