MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS
Marketing research is gathered using a systematic approach. The following are the seven steps in the market research process. Step One: Define Marketing Problems and Opportunities The market research process begins with identifying and defining the problems and opportunities that exist for your business, such as: Launching a new product or service. Low awareness of your company and its products or services. Low utilization of your company's products or services. (The market is familiar with your company, but still is not doing business with you.) A poor company image and reputation. Problems with distribution, i.e., your goods and services are not reaching the buying public in a timely manner. Step Two: Set Objectives, Budget and Timetables Objective: With a marketing problem or opportunity defined, the next step is to set objectives for your market research operations. Your objective might be to explore the nature of a problem so you may further define it. Or, perhaps it is to determine how many people will buy your product packaged in a certain way and offered at a certain price. Your objective might even be to test possible cause and effect relationships. For example, if you lower your price
by 10 percent, what increased sales volume should you expect? What impact will this strategy have on your profit? Budget: How much money are you willing to invest in your market research? How much can you afford? Your market research budget is a portion of your overall marketing budget. A method popular with small business owners to establish a marketing budget is to allocate a small percentage of gross sales for the most recent year. Timetables: Prepare a detailed, realistic time frame to complete all steps of the market research process. If your business operates in cycles, establish target dates that will allow the best accessibility to your market. For example, a holiday greeting card business may want to conduct research before or around the holiday season buying period, when their customers are most likely to be thinking about their purchases. Step Three: Select Research Types, Methods and Techniques There are two types of research: primary research or original information gathered for a specific purpose and secondary research or information that already exists somewhere. Both types of research have a number of activities and methods of conducting associated with them. Secondary research is usually faster and less expensive to obtain that primary research. Gathering secondary research may be as simple as making a trip to your local library or business information center or browsing the Internet. Step Four: Design Research Instruments
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The most common research instrument is the questionnaire. Poorly designed questionnaires do not uncover the information you are seeking. Pretest any question with a few people to see which questions are being misunderstood or are not effective in drawing out the type of response you are interested in. Step Five: Collect the Data To help you obtain clear, unbiased and reliable results, collect the data under the direction of experienced researchers. Before beginning the collection of data, it is important to train, educate and supervise your research staff. An untrained staff person conducting primary research will lead to interviewer bias. Stick to the objectives and rules associated with the methods and techniques you have set in Step Two and Step Three. Try to be as scientific as possible in gathering your information. Step Six: Organize and Analyze the Data Once your data has been collected, it needs to be assembled into a format in which it can be analyzed easily. This involves editing, coding and tabulating the responses. Well-designed questionnaires can make a difference in how easy this step is. Step Seven: Present and Use Market Research Findings Once marketing information about your target market, competition and environment is collected and analyzed, present it in an organized manner to the decision makers of the business. For instance, you may want to report
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your findings in the market analysis section of your business plan. Also, you may want to familiarize your sales and marketing departments with the data or conduct a company-wide informational training seminar using the information.
