The Essence of Marketing Research

Marketing research is an organized structure, compilation, examination, and reporting of information and conclusions about a certain marketing situation that dealing with the company. It’s never restricted to large companies with huge budgets only. A small company may do the marketing research too. Small companies may also use the services of a marketing consultant firm or conduct research in creative and affordable ways, such as using students or professors to plan and carry our products to analyze it (much cheaper than hiring a marketing consultant), gather information through the internet, or even trying out competitors product.

Marketing research process

Step 1: Determine the Issue
Determine the issue precisely. It must not be too general or too narrowly. Set a specific research purpose to keep you in the way.

Step 2: Build the Research Strategy
In building the marketing research strategy, you should be considered such things like: Data sources – it is best to combine the freshly gathered data and data that already exist. Research approach – either via observation, survey, experiments, etc. instruments – you may using tools like questionnaire, qualitative measures, etc. Sampling plan - consider who will be the target of your approach and how many people, and how do you choose the respondents. Contact methods – either by mail, telephone, online, etc.

Step 3: Collect the Information
Be mindful in the data collection stage, because is the most likely lead to mistakes. The key in collecting data is to stay consistent with your research plan.

Step 4: Analyze the Information
Take out the conclusions by making a tabulation of the data, then it will be easier for you to develop the summary.

Step 5: Make the Decision
Review the progress again to ensure you have made the right decision.

When is a marketing research needed?

Research is the key to marketing decision making. The aim of marketing is to fulfill the needs and wants of the customer with your product, therefore the research and identify of your target marketing is needed. Marketing research is always needed all the time. It should be conducted prior to the product launch in order for it to be successful. It then continues on a periodic basis through all the stages of product life cycle using surveys, feedbacks and various other tools of marketing research.