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HABIBBANKLIMITED

2011

Marketing Research and

Data Gathering


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Marketing Research and Data Gathering

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MARKETING RESEARCH AND DATA GATHERING

PROJECT ADVISOR:

Mr. Saleem Sadiqi

SUBMITTED BY:

Saliha saeed

BBA (Hons)

Session 2008-2012

DATE: August 4, 2011

Department Of Management Sciences


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A Report Submitted to the Habib BankLimitedIn partial fulfillment of the requirements for

theInternship

Bachelor of ScienceIn Business Administration

BySaliha Saeed

The Islamia University of Bahawalpur


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Acknowledgements:I truly acknowledge the cooperation and helpmake by Mr. Hanif Malik, Senior Branch Managerof Habib Bank Grain market Branch.

He has been a constant source of guidancethroughout the course of this project. I would alsolike to thank Mr. Azhar Nadeem, Operationmanager and Mr. Azizullah khan, Credit managerof Habib Bank Grain market branch for their help

and guidance in understanding how to gather dataabout market research. I also would like to thankto my friends and family whose silent support ledme to complete this project


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ContentsExecutive Summary: ...................................................................................................................................... 7

1. What is marketing? ............................................................................................................................... 8

2. Earlier approaches of marketing: ........................................................................................................ 10

3. Contemporary Approaches of Marketing: .......................................................................................... 11

4. What is marketing research? .............................................................................................................. 13

5. Difference between marketing research and market research:............................................................ 14

6. Basic Types of marketing research: .................................................................................................... 15

7. Role of marketing research (MR): ....................................................................................................... 16

8. Marketing Research Characteristics: .................................................................................................. 17

9. Comparison with other forms of Business Research: ......................................................................... 17

10. Classification of marketing research: .............................................................................................. 18

11. Some other Types of marketing research: ...................................................................................... 20

12. Marketing Research Methods:........................................................................................................ 22

13. Business to Business Market Research: .......................................................................................... 23

14. Marketing research in small businesses and nonprofit organizations: .......................................... 24

15. International Marketing Research plan ........................................................................................... 2416. Commonly used Marketing Research Terms: ................................................................................. 25

17. Selecting a Research Supplier: ........................................................................................................ 25

18. Careers in Marketing Research: ...................................................................................................... 26

19. Career Ladder in Marketing Research: ........................................................................................... 27

20. The Backbone of Market Research: ................................................................................................ 28

20.1. Data collection: ....................................................................................................................... 29

20.2. Types of data collection: ......................................................................................................... 30

21. Research Data Gathering Techniques:............................................................................................ 30

21.1. Experiment: ............................................................................................................................. 30

21.1.1. Strengths of Experiment: .................................................................................................... 31

21.1.2. Weaknesses of Experiment: ................................................................................................ 31

21.2. Survey: ..................................................................................................................................... 32


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21.2.1. Strengths of Survey: ............................................................................................................ 33

21.2.2. Weaknesses of Survey: ....................................................................................................... 33

21.3. Archival Research: ................................................................................................................... 34

21.3.1. Strengths of Archival Research:.......................................................................................... 36

21.3.2. Weaknesses of Archival Research: ...................................................................................... 36

21.4. Participation Observation: ...................................................................................................... 38

21.4.1. Strengths of participation Observation: ............................................................................. 38

21.4.2. Weaknesses of Participation Observation: .......................................................................... 38

Conclusion: .................................................................................................................................................. 40

References: ................................................................................................................................................. 41


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Executive Summary:

The purpose of this report is to know the importance of marketing research and how to gather

data about it. Because of dynamic changes companies need to evaluate these changes in market

in order to cope up with the varying demands of the customers. Market research is a key tool for

making marketing and management decisions. This report reveals the fact that Running or

starting a business without conducting regular, relevant market research is a major management

mistake. It's like packing for a holiday without checking the weather conditions at your holiday

destination are feasible for you or not. This report emphasizes the importance of marketing

research that all business plans should be based on appropriate and accurate market research. In

this report we will discuss different types of market research like qualitative, quantitative,

descriptive, exploratory, predictive and Conclusive research. We will also discuss role of

marketing research, what the methods of it are and what the careers are in marketing research. As

the report goes on we will discuss data collection (backbone of marketing research) types and

techniques of data gathering like experiments, survey, archival data collection and participative

data research technique. At the last we will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these

techniques.


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1. What is marketing?Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to

customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It

generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business

developments. It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer

relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves.

Marketing is used to identify the customer, satisfy the customer, and keep the customer. With the

customer as the focus of its activities, marketing management is one of the major components of

business management. Marketing evolved to meet the stasis in developing new markets caused

by mature markets and overcapacities in the last 2-3 centuries. The adoption of marketing

strategies requires businesses to shift their focus from production to the perceived needs and

wants of their customers as the means of staying profitable.

The term marketing concept holds that achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the

needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions. It proposes that in

order to satisfy its organizational objectives, an organization should anticipate the needs and

wants of consumers and satisfy these more effectively than competitors.

The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as "the management process responsible

for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably. A different concept

is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing

shareholder value. In this context, marketing is defined as "the management process that seeks to

maximize returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers andcreating a competitive advantage."

Browne (2010) reveals that supermarkets intensively research and study consumer behaviour,

spending millions of dollars. Their aim is to make sure that shoppers leave spending much more

that they originally planned. Choice examined the theory of trolley logy finding that many
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shoppers instinctively look to the right when theyre in the supermarket. Supermarkets prey on

this biological trait by positioning many expensive impulse buying products to the right of the

checkout. These products consist of the latest DVDs, magazines, chocolates, expensive batteries

and other tempting products that wouldnt normally be thought of.

Supermarkets move products around to confuse shoppers; the entry point is another marketing

tactic. Consumer psychologist Dr. Paul Harrison (cited in Browne, 2010) states that

supermarkets are constantly using different methodologies of selling. One method is performing

regular overhauls changing the locations of products all around to break habitual shopping, and

break your budget. Harrison also contends that people who are shopping in a counter clockwise

direction are likely to spend more money than people shopping in a clockwise direction.

Consumer psychologists (cited in Browne, 2010) reported that most people write with their right

hand, thus it is a biological trait that people have the tendency of veering to the right when

shopping, it is understood that supermarkets capitalize on this fact. Found on the capturing right-

hand side are usually appealing products that a shopper might impulsively e.g. an umbrella when

the weather is dull.


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2. Earlier approaches of marketing:The marketing orientation evolved from earlier orientations, namely, the production orientation,

the product orientation and the selling orientation.

OrientationProfit

driver

Western

European

timeframe

Description

Production

Production

methods

until the

1950s

A firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in

producing as much as possible of a given product or service.

Thus, this signifies a firm exploiting economies of scale until

the minimum efficient scale is reached. A production

orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a

product or service exists, coupled with a good certainty that

consumer tastes will not rapidly alter (similar to the sales

orientation).

Product

Quality of

the

product

until the

1960s

A firm employing a product orientation is chiefly concerned

with the quality of its own product. A firm would also assume

that as long as its product was of a high standard, people

would buy and consume the product.

SellingSelling

methods

1950s and

1960s

A firm using a sales orientation focuses primarily on the

selling/promotion of a particular product, and not determining

new consumer desires as such. Consequently, this entails

simply selling an already existing product, and using

promotion techniques to attain the highest sales possible.

Such an orientation may suit scenarios in which a firm holds

dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand,

with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes that would
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diminish demand.

Marketing

Needs and

wants of

customers

1970 to

present

day

The 'marketing orientation' is perhaps the most common

orientation used in contemporary marketing. It involves a firm

essentially basing its marketing plans around the marketingconcept, and thus supplying products to suit new consumer

tastes. As an example, a firm would employ market research

to gauge consumer desires, use R&D to develop a product

attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion

techniques to ensure persons know the product exists.

3. Contemporary Approaches of Marketing:Recent approaches in marketing include relationship marketing with focus on the customer,

business marketing or industrial marketing with focus on an organization or institution and social

marketing with focus on benefits to society. New forms of marketing also use the internet and

are therefore called internet marketing or more generally e-marketing, online marketing, search

engine marketing, desktop advertising or affiliate marketing. It attempts to perfect the

segmentation strategy used in traditional marketing. It targets its audience more precisely, and is

sometimes called personalized marketing or one-to-one marketing. Internet marketing is

sometimes considered to be broad in scope, because it not only refers to marketing on the

Internet, but also includes marketing done via e-mail and wireless media.
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OrientationProfit

driver

Western

European

timeframe

Description

Relationship

marketing /

Relationship

management

Building and

keeping

good

customer

relations

1960s to

present

day

Emphasis is placed on the whole relationship between

suppliers and customers. The aim is to provide the best

possible customer service and build customer loyalty.

Business

marketing /

Industrial

marketing

Building and

keeping

relationships

between

organizations

1980s to

present

day

In this context, marketing takes place between

businesses or organizations. The product focus lies on

industrial goods or capital goods rather than consumer

products or end products. Different forms of marketing

activities, such as promotion, advertising and

communication to the customer are used.

Social

marketing

Benefit to

society

1990s to

present

day

Similar characteristics as marketing orientation but with

the added proviso that there will be a curtailment of any

harmful activities to society, in product, production, or

selling methods.

Branding Brand value

1980s to

present

day

In this context, "branding" is the main company

philosophy and marketing is considered an instrument of

branding philosophy.
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4. What is marketing research?Marketing research involves conducting research to support marketing activities, and the

statistical interpretation of data into information. This information is then used by managers to

plan marketing activities, gauge the nature of a firm's marketing environment and attain

information from suppliers. Marketing researchers use statistical methods such as quantitative

research, qualitative research, hypothesis tests, Chi-squared tests,linear regression, correlations,

frequency distributions, Poisson distributions, binomial distributions, etc. to interpret their

findings and convert data into information. The marketing research process spans a number of

stages, including the definition of a problem, development of a research plan, collection and

interpretation of data and disseminating information formally in the form of a report. The task of

marketing research is to provide management with relevant, accurate, reliable, valid, and current

information.

Marketing Research is the function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the

marketer through informationinformation used to identify and define marketing opportunities

and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance;

and improve understanding of marketing as a process. Marketing research specifies the

information required to address these issues, designs the method for collecting information,

manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes the results, and communicates the

findings and their implications." Marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording, and

analysis of data about issues relating to marketing products and services. The goal of marketing

research is to identify and assess how changing elements of the marketing mix impacts customer

behavior. The term is commonly interchanged with market research; however, expert

practitioners may wish to draw a distinction, in that market research is concerned specifically

with markets, while marketing research is concerned specifically about marketing processes.

Marketing research is often partitioned into two sets of categorical pairs, either by target market:

Consumer marketing research, and
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6. Basic Types of marketing research:Marketing research, as a sub-set aspect of marketing activities, can be divided into the following

parts:

Primary research (also known as field research), which involves the conduction andcompilation of research for a specific purpose.

Secondary research (also referred to as desk research), initially conducted for one purpose,but often used to support another purpose or end goal.

By these definitions, an example of primary research would be market research conducted into

health foods, which is used solely to ascertain the needs/wants of the target market for health

foods. Secondary research in this case would be research pertaining to health foods, but used by

a firm wishing to develop an unrelated product.

Primary research is often expensive to prepare, collect and interpret from data to information.

Nevertheless, while secondary research is relatively inexpensive, it often can become outdated

and outmoded, given that it is used for a purpose other than the one for which it was intended.

Primary research can also be broken down into quantitative research and qualitative research,

which, as the terms suggest, pertain to numerical and non-numerical research methods and

techniques, respectively. The appropriateness of each mode of research depends on whether data

can be quantified (quantitative research), or whether subjective, non-numeric or abstract

concepts are required to be studied (qualitative research).

There also exist additional modes of marketing research, which are:

Exploratory research, pertaining to research that investigates an assumption. Descriptive research, which, as the term suggests, describes "what is". Predictive research, meaning research conducted to predict a future occurrence. Conclusive research, for the purpose of deriving a conclusion via a research process


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7. Role of marketing research (MR):The task of marketing research (MR) is to provide management with relevant, accurate, reliable,

valid, and current information. Competitive marketing environment and the ever-increasing costs

attributed to poor decision making require that marketing research provide sound information.

Sound decisions are not based on gut feeling, intuition, or even pure judgment.

Marketing managers make numerous strategic and tactical decisions in the process of identifying

and satisfying customer needs. They make decisions about potential opportunities, target market

selection, market segmentation, planning and implementing marketing programs, marketing

performance, and control. These decisions are complicated by interactions between the

controllable marketing variables of product, pricing, promotion, and distribution. Further

complications are added by uncontrollable environmental factors such as general economic

conditions, technology, public policies and laws, political environment, competition, and social

and cultural changes. Another factor in this mix is the complexity of consumers. Marketing

research helps the marketing manager link the marketing variables with the environment and the

consumers. It helps remove some of the uncertainty by providing relevant information about the

marketing variables, environment, and consumers. In the absence of relevant information,

consumers' response to marketing programs cannot be predicted reliably or accurately. Ongoing

marketing research programs provide information on controllable and non-controllable factors

and consumers; this information enhances the effectiveness of decisions made by marketing

managers.

Traditionally, marketing researchers were responsible for providing the relevant information and

marketing decisions were made by the managers. However, the roles are changing and marketing

researchers are becoming more involved in decision making, whereas marketing managers are

becoming more involved with research. The role of marketing research in managerial decision

making is explained further using the framework of the "DECIDE" model:

The DECIDE model conceptualizes managerial decision making as a series of six steps. The

decision process begins by precisely defining the problem or opportunity, along with the
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objectives and constraints. Next, the possible decision factors that make up the alternative

courses of action (controllable factors) and uncertainties (uncontrollable factors) are enumerated.

Then, relevant information on the alternatives and possible outcomes is collected. The next step

is to select the best alternative based on chosen criteria or measures of success. Then a detailed

plan to implement the alternative selected is developed and put into effect. Last, the outcome of

the decision and the decision process itself are evaluated.

8. Marketing Research Characteristics:First, marketing research is systematic. Thus systematic planning is required at all the stages of

the marketing research process. The procedures followed at each stage are methodologically

sound, well documented, and, as much as possible, planned in advance. Marketing research uses

the scientific method in that data are collected and analyzed to test prior notions or hypotheses.

Marketing research is objective. It attempts to provide accurate information that reflects a true

state of affairs. It should be conducted impartially. While research is always influenced by the

researcher's research philosophy, it should be free from the personal or political biases of the

researcher or the management. Research which is motivated by personal or political gain

involves a breach of professional standards. Such research is deliberately biased so as to result in

predetermined findings. The motto of every researcher should be, "Find it and tell it like it is."

The objective nature of marketing research underscores the importance of ethical considerations.

9. Comparison with other forms of Business Research:Other forms of business research include:

Market researchis broader in scope and examines all aspects of a business environment. Itasks questions about competitors, market structure, government regulations, economic

trends, technological advances, and numerous other factors that make up the business

environment (see environmental scanning). Sometimes the term refers more particularly to

the financial analysis of companies, industries, or sectors. In this case, financial analysts
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usually carry out the research and provide the results to investment advisors and potential

investors.

Product research - This looks at what products can be produced with available technology,and what new product innovations near-future technology can develop (see new product

development).

Advertising research - is a specialized form of marketing research conducted to improvethe efficacy of advertising. Copy testing, also known as "pre-testing," is a form of

customized research that predicts in-market performance of an ad before it airs, by analyzing

audience levels of attention, brand linkage, motivation, entertainment, and communication,

as well as breaking down the adsflow of attention and flow of emotion.

10. Classification of marketing research:Organizations engage in marketing research for two reasons:

(1)To identify and (2) solve marketing problems. This distinction serves as a basis forclassifying marketing research into problem identification research and problem solving

research.

Problem identification research is undertaken to help identify problems which are, perhaps, not

apparent on the surface and yet exist or are likely to company image, market characteristics,

sales analysis, short-range forecasting, long range forecasting, and business trends research.

Research of this type provides information about the marketing environment and helps diagnose

a problem. For example, the findings of problem solving research are used in making decisions

which will solve specific marketing problems.

Standardized services are research studies conducted for different client firms but in a standard

way. For example, procedures for measuring advertising effectiveness have been standardized so

that the results can be compared across studies and evaluative norms can be established. The

Starch Readership Survey is the most widely used service for evaluating print advertisements;
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another well-known service is the Gallup and Robinson Magazine Impact Studies. These

services are also sold on a syndicated basis.

Customized services offer a wide variety of marketing research services customized to suita client's specific needs. Each marketing research project is treated uniquely.

Limited-service suppliers specialize in one or a few phases of the marketing researchproject. Services offered by such suppliers are classified as field services, coding and data

entry, data analysis, analytical services, and branded products. Field services collect data

through mail, personal, or telephone interviewing, and firms that specialize in interviewing

are called field service organizations. These organizations may range from small proprietary

organizations which operate locally to large multinational organizations with WATS line

interviewing facilities. Some organizations maintain extensive interviewing facilities acrossthe country for interviewing shoppers in malls.

Coding and data entry services include editing completed questionnaires, developing acoding scheme, and transcribing the data on to diskettes or magnetic tapes for input into the

computer. NRC Data Systems provides such services.

Analytical services include designing and pretesting questionnaires, determining the bestmeans of collecting data, designing sampling plans, and other aspects of the research design.

Some complex marketing research projects require knowledge of sophisticated procedures,

including specialized experimental designs, and analytical techniques such as conjoint

analysis and multidimensional scaling. This kind of expertise can be obtained from firms and

consultants specializing in analytical services.

Data analysis services are offered by firms, also known as tab houses that specialize incomputer analysis of quantitative data such as those obtained in large surveys. Initially most

data analysis firms supplied only tabulations (frequency counts) and cross tabulations

(frequency counts that describe two or more variables simultaneously). With the proliferation

ofsoftware, many firms now have the capability to analyze their own data, but, data analysis

firms are still in demand.

Branded marketing research products and services are specialized data collection andanalysis procedures developed to address specific types of marketing research problems.
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These procedures are patented, given brand names, and marketed like any other branded

product.

11.

Some other Types of marketing research:

Marketing research techniques come in many forms, including:

Ad Trackingperiodic or continuous in-market research to monitor abrandsperformanceusing measures such as brand awareness, brand preference, and product usage. (Young,

2005)

Advertising Researchused to predict copy testing or trackthe efficacy of advertisementsfor any medium, measured by the ads ability to get attention (measured with AttentionTracking), communicate the message, build the brands image, and motivate the consumer to

purchase the product or service. (Young, 2005)

Brand equity research - how favorably do consumers view the brand? Brand association research - what do consumers associate with the brand? Brand attribute research - what are the key traits that describe the brand promise? Brand name testing- what do consumers feel about the names of the products? Commercial eye tracking research - examine advertisements, package designs, websites,

etc. by analyzing visual behavior of the consumer

Concept testing- to test the acceptance of a concept by target consumers Cool hunting- to make observations and predictions in changes of new or existing cultural

trends in areas such as fashion, music, films, television, youth culture and lifestyle

Buyer decision processes research - to determine what motivates people to buy and whatdecision-making process they use

Copy testingpredicts in-market performance of an ad before it airs by analyzing audiencelevels ofattention, brand linkage,motivation, entertainment, and communication, as well as

breaking down the ads flow of attention and flow of emotion. (Young, p 213)

Customer satisfaction research - quantitative or qualitative studies that yields anunderstanding of a customer's of satisfaction with a transaction

Demand estimation - to determine the approximate level of demand for the product
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Trackinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Trackinghttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/brandhttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/brandhttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/brandhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_Researchhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_Researchhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_testinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Trackinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AttentionTrackinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AttentionTrackinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_equityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_managementhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_managementhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_eye_trackinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_testinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_testinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolhuntinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolhuntinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buyer_decision_processeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_testinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_testinghttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/attentionhttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/brand_linkagehttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/motivationhttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/flow_of_attentionhttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/flow_of_emotionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_satisfaction_researchhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_satisfaction_researchhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demandhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demandhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_satisfaction_researchhttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/flow_of_emotionhttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/flow_of_attentionhttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/motivationhttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/brand_linkagehttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/attentionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_testinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buyer_decision_processeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolhuntinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_testinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_eye_trackinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_managementhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_equityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AttentionTrackinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AttentionTrackinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Trackinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_testinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_Researchhttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/brandhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Tracking


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Distribution channel audits - to assess distributors and retailers attitudes toward aproduct, brand, or company

Internet strategic intelligence - searching for customer opinions in the Internet: chats,forums, web pages, blogs... where people express freely about their experiences with

products, becoming strong "opinion formers"

Marketing effectiveness and analytics - Building models and measuring results todetermine the effectiveness of individual marketing activities.

Mystery Consumer or Mystery shopping - An employee or representative of the marketresearch firm anonymously contacts a salesperson and indicates he or she is shopping for a

product. The shopper then records the entire experience. This method is often used for

quality control or for researching competitors' products.

Positioning research - how does the target market see the brand relative to competitors? -What does the brand stand for?

Price elasticity testing - to determine how sensitive customers are to price changes Sales forecasting - to determine the expected level of sales given the level of demand. With

respect to other factors like Advertising expenditure, sales promotion etc.

Segmentation research - to determine the demographic, psychographic, and behavioralcharacteristics of potential buyers

Online panel- a group of individual who accepted to respond to marketing research online

Store audit - to measure the sales of a product or product line at a statistically selected storesample in order to determine market share, or to determine whether a retail store provides

adequate service

Test marketing- a small-scale product launch used to determine the likely acceptance of theproduct when it is introduced into a wider market

Viral Marketing Research - refers to marketing research designed to estimate theprobability that specific communications will be transmitted throughout an individual's

Social Network. Estimates of Social Networking Potential (SNP) are combined with

estimates of selling effectiveness to estimate ROI on specific combinations of messages and

media.
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All of these forms of marketing research can be classified as either problem-identification

research or as problem-solving research.

There are two main sources of data - primary and secondary. Primary research is conducted

from scratch. It is original and collected to solve the problem in hand. Secondary research

already exists since it has been collected for other purposes. It is conducted on data published

previously and usually by someone else. Secondary research costs far less than primary research,

but seldom comes in a form that exactly meets the needs of the researcher.

A similar distinction exists between exploratory research and conclusive research. Exploratory

research provides insights into and comprehension of an issue or situation. It should draw

definitive conclusions only with extreme caution. Conclusive research draws conclusions: the

results of the study can be generalized to the whole population.

Exploratory research is conducted to explore a problem to get some basic idea about the solution

at the preliminary stages of research. It may serve as the input to conclusive research.

Exploratory research information is collected by focus group interviews, reviewing literature or

books, discussing with experts, etc. This is unstructured and qualitative in nature. If a secondary

source of data is unable to serve the purpose, a convenience sample of small size can be

collected. Conclusive research is conducted to draw some conclusion about the problem. It isessentially, structured and quantitative research, and the output of this research is the input to

management information systems (MIS).

Exploratory research is also conducted to simplify the findings of the conclusive or descriptive

research, if the findings are very hard to interpret for the marketing managers.

12. Marketing Research Methods:Methodologically, marketing research uses the following types of research designs:[6]

Based on questioning:
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Qualitative marketing research - generally used for exploratory purposes - smallnumber of respondents - not generalizable to the whole population - statistical

significance and confidence not calculated - examples include focus groups, in-depth

interviews, and projective techniques

Quantitative marketing research - generally used to draw conclusions - tests aspecific hypothesis - uses random sampling techniques so as to infer from the sample

to the population - involves a large number of respondents - examples include

surveys and questionnaires. Techniques include choice modeling, maximum

difference preference scaling, and covariance analysis.

Based on observations:

Ethnographic studies -, by nature qualitative, the researcher observes socialphenomena in their natural setting - observations can occur cross-sectional

(observations made at one time) or longitudinally (observations occur over several

time-periods) - examples include product-use analysis and computer cookie traces.

See also Ethnography and Observational techniques.

Experimental techniques -, by nature quantitative, the researcher creates a quasi-artificial environment to try to control spurious factors, then manipulates at least one

of the variables - examples include purchase laboratories and test markets

Researchers often use more than one research design. They may start with secondary

research to get background information, and then conduct a focus group (qualitative

research design) to explore the issues. Finally they might do a full nation-wide survey

(quantitative research design) in order to devise specific recommendations for the client.

13.

Business to Business Market Research:

Business to business (B2B) research is inevitably more complicated than consumer

research. The researchers need to know what type of multi-faceted approach will answer

the objectives, since seldom is it possible to find the answers using just one method.

Finding the right respondents is crucial in B2B research since they are often busy, and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_marketing_researchhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_marketing_researchhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_grouphttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=In-depth_interviews&action=edit&redlink=1http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=In-depth_interviews&action=edit&redlink=1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projective_techniqueshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_marketing_researchhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_marketing_researchhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(statistics)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_surveyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Questionnaire_constructionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice_modellinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MaxDiffhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MaxDiffhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Covariance_analysis&action=edit&redlink=1http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ethnographic_studies&action=edit&redlink=1http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ethnographic_studies&action=edit&redlink=1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnographyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observational_techniqueshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_techniqueshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_techniqueshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_techniqueshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observational_techniqueshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnographyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ethnographic_studies&action=edit&redlink=1http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Covariance_analysis&action=edit&redlink=1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MaxDiffhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MaxDiffhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice_modellinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Questionnaire_constructionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_surveyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(statistics)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_marketing_researchhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projective_techniqueshttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=In-depth_interviews&action=edit&redlink=1http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=In-depth_interviews&action=edit&redlink=1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_grouphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_marketing_research


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may not want to participate. Encouraging them to open up is yet another skill required

of the B2B researcher. Last, but not least, most business research leads to strategic

decisions and this means that the business researcher must have expertise in developing

strategies that are strongly rooted in the research findings and acceptable to the client.

There are four key factors that make B2B market research special and different to

consumer markets:

The decision making unit is far more complex in B2B markets than in consumermarkets

B2B products and their applications are more complex than consumer products B2B marketers address a much smaller number of customers who are very much

larger in their consumption of products than is the case in consumer markets

Personal relationships are of critical importance in B2B markets.

14. Marketing research in small businesses and nonprofitorganizations:

Marketing research does not only occur in huge corporations with many employees and a

large budget. Marketing information can be derived by observing the environment of

their location and the competitions location. Small scale surveys and focus groups are

low cost ways to gather information from potential and existing customers. Most

secondary data (statistics, demographics, etc.) is available to the public in libraries or on

the internet and can be easily accessed by a small business owner.

15. International Marketing Research planInternational Marketing Research follows the same path as domestic research, but

there are a few more problems that may arise. Customers in international markets

may have very different customs, cultures, and expectations from the same company.

In this case, Marketing Research relies more on primary data rather than secondary


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information. Gathering the primary data can be hindered by language, literacy and

access to technology.

16.

Commonly used Marketing Research Terms:

Market research techniques resemble those used in political polling and social

science research.Meta-analysis(also called the Schmidt-Hunter technique) refers to

a statistical method of combining data from multiple studies or from several types of

studies. Conceptualization means the process of converting vague mental images

into definable concepts. Operationalization is the process of converting concepts

into specific observable behaviors that a researcher can measure. Precision refers to

the exactness of any given measure.Reliabilityrefers to the likelihood that a given

operationalized construct will yield the same results if re-measured. Validityrefers

to the extent to which a measure provides data that captures the meaning of the

operationalized construct as defined in the study. It asks, Are we measuring what

we intended to measure?

Applied research sets out to prove a specific hypothesis of value to the clientspaying for the research. For example, a cigarette company might commission

research that attempts to show that cigarettes are good for one's health. Many

researchers have ethical misgivings about doing applied research.

17. Selecting a Research Supplier:A firm that cannot conduct an entire marketing research project in-house must selectan external supplier for one or more phases of the project. The firm should compile a

list of prospective suppliers from such sources as trade publications, professional

directories, and word of mouth. When deciding on criteria for selecting an outside

supplier, a firm should ask itself why it is seeking outside marketing research

support. For example, a small firm that needs one project investigated may find it
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economically efficient to employ an outside source. Or a firm may not have the

technical expertise undertake certain phases of a project or political conflict-of-

interest issues may determine that a project be conducted by an outside supplied.

When developing criteria for selecting an outside supplier, a firm should keep some

basics in mind. What is the reputation of the supplier? Do they complete projects on

schedule? Are they known for maintaining ethical standards? Are they flexible? Are

their research projects of high quality?

What kind and how much experience does the supplier have? Has the firm had

experience with projects similar to this one? Do the supplier's personnel have both

technical and nontechnical expertise? In other words, in addition to technical skills,

are the personnel assigned to the task sensitive to the client's needs and do they share

the client's research ideology? Can they communicate well with the client?

18. Careers in Marketing Research:Some of the positions available in marketing research include vice president of

marketing research, research director, and assistant director of research, project

manager, and field work director, statistician/data processing specialist, senior

analyst, analyst, junior analyst and operational supervisor.

The most common entry-level position in marketing research for people with

bachelor's degrees (e.g., BBA) is as operational supervisor. These people are

responsible for supervising a well-defined set of operations, including field work,

data editing, and coding, and may be involved in programming and data analysis.

Another entry-level position for BBAs is assistant project manager. An assistant

project manager will learn and assist in questionnaire design, review field

instructions, and monitor timing and costs of studies. In the marketing research

industry, however, there is a growing preference for people with master's degrees.

Those with MBA or equivalent degrees are likely to be employed as project

managers. A small number of business schools also offer a more specialized Master
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of Marketing Research (MMR) degree. An MMR typically prepares students for a

wide range of research methodologies and focuses on learning both in the classroom

and the field.

The typical entry-level position in a business firm would be junior research analyst

(for BBAs) or research analyst (for MBAs or MMRs). The junior analyst and the

research analyst learn about the particular industry and receive training from a senior

staff member, usually the marketing research manager. The junior analyst position

includes a training program to prepare individuals for the responsibilities of a

research analyst, including coordinating with the marketing department and sales

force to develop goals for product exposure. The research analyst responsibilities

include checking all data for accuracy, comparing and contrasting new research withestablished norms, and analyzing primary and secondary data for the purpose of

market forecasting.

As these job titles indicate, people with a variety of backgrounds and skills are

needed in marketing research. Technical specialists such as statisticians obviously

need strong backgrounds in statistics and data analysis. Other positions, such as

research director, call for managing the work of others and require more general

skills. To prepare for a career in marketing research, students usually:

Take all the marketing courses. Take courses in statistics and quantitative methods. Acquire computer skills. Take courses in psychology and consumer behavior. Acquire effective written and verbal communication skills. Think creatively.

19. Career Ladder in Marketing Research:1. Vice-President of Marketing Research: This is the senior position in

marketing research. The VP is responsible for the entire marketing research
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operation of the company and serves on the top management team. Sets the

objectives and goals of the marketing, research department.

2. Research Director: Also a senior position, the director has the overallresponsibility for the development and execution of all the marketing

research projects.

3. Assistant Director of Research: Serves as an administrative assistant to thedirector and supervises some of the other marketing research staff members.

4. (Senior) Project Manager: Has overall responsibility for design,implementation, and management of research projects.

5. Statistician/Data Processing Specialist: Serves as an expert on theory andapplication of statistical techniques. Responsibilities include experimental

design, data processing, and analysis.

6. Senior Analyst: Participates in the development of projects and directs theoperational execution of the assigned projects. Works closely with the

analyst, junior analyst, and other personnel in developing the research design

and data collection. Prepares the final report. The primary responsibility for

meeting time and cost constraints rests with the senior analyst.

7. Analyst: Handles the details involved in executing the project. Designs andpretests the questionnaires and conducts a preliminary analysis of the data.

8. Junior Analyst: Handles routine assignments such as secondary dataanalysis, editing and coding of questionnaires, and simple statistical analysis.

9. Field Work Director: Responsible for the selection, training, supervision,and evaluation of interviewers and other field workers.

Data collection and techniques of data gathering:

20. The Backbone of Market Research:Data collection is an important step in the market research process. It involves gathering

information about customers, competitors, and the market to help companies improve existing

products and services and launch new products or services, expand into new markets, and create


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marketing plans. This process can be performed on a large or small scale and can involve both

qualitative and quantitative data. By utilizing the Internet, data collection allows for a broad

range of consumer feedback on behaviors, perceptions, needs, attitudes, and opinions. Data

collection projects range from simple habits and attitudes questionnaires, which gather data from

a large number of consumers, to complex in-home product testing, which gather in-depth

consumer insight. Though data collection by means of the Internet provides a cost-effective

approach to market research, at times traditional methods such as focus groups and in-home

interviewing can prove to be effective as well.

20.1.Data collection:Data collectionis a term used to describe a process of preparing and collecting data - for example

as part of a process improvement or similar project. The purpose of data collection is to obtain

information to keep on record, to make decisions about important issues, to pass information on

to others. Primarily, data is collected to provide information regarding a specific topic.

Data collection usually takes place early on in an improvement project, and is often formalized

through a data collection plan which often contains the following activity.

1. Pre collection activityAgree goals, target data, definitions, methods2. Collectiondata collection3. Present Findingsusually involves some form of sorting analysis and/or presentation.

Prior to any data collection, pre-collection activity is one of the most crucial steps in the process.

It is often discovered too late that the value of their interview information is discounted as a

consequence of poor sampling of both questions and informants and poor elicitation techniques.

After pre-collection activity is fully completed, data collection in the field, whether by

interviewing or other methods, can be carried out in a structured, systematic and scientific way.

A formal data collection process is necessary as it ensures that data gathered is both defined and

accurate and that subsequent decisions based on arguments embodied in the findings are valid.

The process provides both a baseline from which to measure from and in certain cases a target on

what to improve.
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20.2.Types of data collection: 1-By mail questionnaires 2-By personal interview.

Other main types of collection include census, sample survey, and administrative by-product and

each with their respective advantages and disadvantages. A census refers to data collection about

everyone or everything in a group or population and has advantages, such as accuracy and detail

and disadvantages, such as cost and time. A sample survey is a data collection method that

includes only part of the total population and has advantages, such as cost and time and

disadvantages, such as accuracy and detail. Administrative by-product data is collected as a

byproduct of an organizations day-to-day operations and has advantages, such as accuracy, time

simplicity and disadvantages, such as no flexibility and lack of control.

21.Research Data Gathering Techniques:This is designed to complement, not replace, the lectures and class discussions about R.D.G.T.s.

Examples given in class are not repeated in detail and some new examples are included. Several

similar essays were found online, but all of them were either too detailed in examples or in

concepts to fit in very well with what I want you to get out of this, so I wrote my own.

There are 4 main R.D.G.T.s in the social sciences: experiment, survey archival research and

participant observation. Although some refer to these as "methods" I believe it is better to call

them techniques unless one is also going to talk in relative detail about the entire research

process: literature review, theory construction, hypothesis formation, data collection design and

analysis of the data collected.

21.1.Experiment:The most systematic technique of data collection is laboratory experiment, where it is hoped all

variables will be able to be controlled by the researcher. Since physics and chemistry (including

biochemistry) have gone the farthest in developing the experimental "method", they are

(sometimes inappropriately) taken as the gold standard of what science has to be like. Although
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it should be obvious that great strides have been made in many of the other physical sciences

where laboratory experiment is not possible such as astronomy, geology and many areas of

biology, the social sciences are sometimes criticized as not being real sciences because they are

not based enough on experiment, particularly lab experiment. While small issues of human social

behavior can be studied in the artificial setting of a laboratory, attempts to study larger issues

have frequently resulted in results that are very controversial because it is not completely clear

that all of the variables were actually either being controlled or even measured.

While variables sometimes can be manipulated in a "field" setting, field experiments can be

contaminated by factors the experimenter is unaware of.

21.1.1. Strengths of Experiment:1. Provides numerical results in most cases.2. Focus on trivial behaviors can yield results that are of low importance to the subject,

resulting in more natural behavior.

3. Careful matching of experimental and control group members can give increasedconfidence in the results.

4. Generally replicable.21.1.2. Weaknesses of Experiment:

1. Ethical guidelines prevent many experiments. Informed consent of the subjects requiredby scientific societies, universities and funding agencies alerts the subjects and puts them

on their guard.

2. Humans are very self-conscious when they know they are being observed and mayintentionally or unintentially alter their behavior.

3. The higher the "risk" in the experiment the higher the self-consciousness.4. In trying to control the situation, the behaviors that are being measured may become so

limited that there is little point to the experiment.

5. Failure to clearly isolate and manipulate variables between a control and an experimentalgroup can give an illusion of an effect.


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6. The experimental subjects may not properly reflect the population and therefore preventgeneralization of the experimental results to the population.

21.2.Survey:Surveys are any form of questioning of a sample of people with hopes of getting an insight into a

larger population of people. Since people are either being asked to fill out a questionnaire, or are

being asked by a door-to-door interviewer or by someone on the telephone, or responding to

questions from a computer, surveys usually depend on self-reporting of the data by the subject.

In the past door-to-door or phone interviewers were often instructed to fill out some information

by observation, such as age, gender or "race", or impressions of the subject while responding:

slow? Hesitant? Answer with a rising tone? Facial responses such as looking down or into the

eyes of the interviewer? Trained interviewers also can easily follow a branching survey. With

today's phone-robot and online surveys there is very little door-to-door surveying done and the

phone robots cannot usually discern gender or speaking accent. However, computers and phone

robot interviewers can time responses and note changes to answers, and phone robots could (I do

not know whether they do) register rising tone answers. And computerized surveys can easily be

programmed to branch depending on the previous answers.

Small samples frequently are stratified, which means that the less numerous categories of people

in the population are oversampled to insure they are included, while larger categories such as

white men are under sampled because they are much more likely to be included even if under

sampled. To compute numerical values for the different answers the answers of the over counted

categories and undercounted categories are multiplied by a weighting factor to come closer to the

population projection.

In addition, small samples are usually done on a forced basis, which means the subjects have

been selected to represent certain characteristics and if the first person meeting those

characteristics declines to participate, s/he will be replaced by someone else with the same

characteristics. For example, since place of residence is frequently strongly correlated with other

social factors such as ethnicity, income, education, age, etc., addresses are sometimes chosen as

means of getting respondents fitting a certain set of characteristics. The instructions to the door-

to-door (d2d) interviewer might be to interview the residents of the house on the northwest


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corner of each block in a particular neighborhood. If no one is home or they refuse to participate,

go 4 doors to the left until success is achieved. For computer or telephone interviews, phone

numbers are often chosen because they are in particular neighborhoods, so the same algorithm

can be used.

21.2.1. Strengths of Survey:1. Anonymity can encourage people to be more forthcoming than in an experiment or other

kind of direct observation

2. Easy to analyze with modern data management and analysis software. Some analysistools are usually installed on most PCs.

3. Relatively cheap to mail out questionnaires or one-time keys to take the survey online.4. Even forced sampling is more easily accomplished with computers using auto dialing

routines.

5. Interviews by humans or computers can be better than questionnaires in capturinginformation about how the respondents reacted to the individual questions.

6. As we lose privacy with the increase in commercial and governmental data mining it willbe increasingly easy to collect behavior without the knowledge or consent of the people

being studied.

7. If anonymity is assured, there are relatively few ethical issues in scientific polling.Political push polling is another matter entirely.

21.2.2. Weaknesses of Survey:1. Regardless of perceived anonymity people do, both willingly and unwillingly, misreport

their characteristics or behavior to be more acceptable than they actually are.

2. People do try to figure out what you are trying to get at and may be influenced by that intheir answers.

3. Particularly with questionnaires that are distributed through the mail, even though theinitial sample to whom things were mailed may be either properly random or properly

stratified, the sampling may be disrupted by differential response rates by different sorts

of people. For example, on politically charged topics people who feel strongly one way or


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the other participate more heavily than do the people in the middle who are usually more

numerous. On lifestyle issues people whose behavior may seem extreme or radical

compared to the norm are sometimes more likely to fill out the questionnaire.

4. Interviews, which are more likely to used forced sampling to maintain randomness orstructure of the sample even in the face of people who decline to participate, are more

expensive since they involve more members of the team who have to train and frequently

paid to conduct the interviews. D2d interviews are even more time consuming and thus

more expensive.

5. Ultimately, even when reporting behavior, surveys are more about thoughts and ideasthan the actual behavior.

6. As we lose privacy with the increase in commercial data mining our behavior willincreasingly be reported without our knowledge or consent.

21.3.Archival Research:In the past this was thought to be primarily the domain of historians, but increasingly after the

mid-1900's, some historians themselves began to think of their discipline as a kind of social

science, and historical data began to be used by sociologists, anthropologists, economists,

political scientists and cultural geographers. People often think of the past as something that is

easily reconstructed from written records, but the cross fertilization of all these fields raised such

basic questions as "What is a document of the past?" Folktales? Myths? Legends? Oral histories?

Architecture? Art? "Why are some things from the past preserved and others are not?" Might

behavior in the past be revealed by looking in new ways for remains of that past behavior?

As a basic example, historians and social scientists from sociology and anthropology had for a

long time assumed that the modern nuclear family, increasingly today becoming a broken

nuclear family, was a result of the breakdown of traditional society caused by the industrial

revolution.

Historians' views of families of the past were distorted by their past concentration on the history

of the elites, the ones who wrote letters, kept diaries and were frequently documented by others.

Even the artifacts produced for and used by the elites are more likely to survive over the years

because of their quality, value and historical significance. Such families tended to be


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multigenerational and even to be extended with several married children sharing country estates

and elaborate urban residences, depending on the season.

Sociologists' views were distorted by their tendency to focus on contemporary social problems of

whatever period the individual sociologist was living in. Comparing the sometimes broken

families of the mid to late 1800s which had been studied at that time, to the increasingly broken

families of the 20th century without adequate detailed attention to the histories of those poorer

people before industrialization led sociologists to infer a regression line back to an imagined

state of the peasants living in the past in families like those of the wealthy.

Anthropologists' views were distorted by their tendency to treat the aboriginal people in all of the

conquered parts of the world that the Europeans had colonized in the Age of Exploration and the

Industrial Revolution as though those natives had been living from time immemorial in the

manner in which they appeared to the Europeans in the 18th and 19th centuries.

All three of these disciplines began to wake up at about the same time that the history of these

"people without history" was perhaps very different from what had been assumed based on the

history of "people with history."

The problem was how to recover the history where there seemed to be none? Social scientists

began to look for different documents and for previously overlooked information in documents

that had previously been used to study the behavior of the elites. For example, travel passes

issued by slave owners to slaves to visit neighboring plantations, followed by transfers of slaves

between plantation owners which had not been looked at seriously before, revealed a pattern of

courting and family formation among some African American slaves that hitherto had not been

noticed by historians.

Content analysis of paintings could be used to reveal past attitudes and behaviors, such as thechanging depictions of children in paintings from medieval to modern times, suggesting that in

the past children went straight from being babies to being workers on farms and in mills and

factories.


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Another of the tools is archeology (I prefer the simpler spelling) which treats physical remnants

of past behavior as documents. With the advent of radiological and chemical dating techniques

following World War II it was possible to dig up an ancient Native American, African or English

peasant house from several hundred years ago and have some confidence in how old it is.

Increasing sophistication in recording the materials coming out of archeological sites allowed

fuller reconstruction of the activities at the time the sites were "alive", including how many

people lived there.

21.3.1. Strengths of Archival Research:1. The people being studied cannot alter their behavior because of the current study or the

presence of the current researcher. However the researcher needs to be aware of the

context in which the "document" of the past was created, but that has always been the

essence of the historical method, historical criticism. What are the likely sources of bias,

sampling error or other possible sources of distortion?

2. Some sources of data are readily available either in microfilm or microfiche or inelectronically readable format, some even readily available online for free. Examples:

Mormon genealogical database, GSS, various government surveys. The entire body of

ancient Greek documents has been available in electronically readable form since at least

the 1970's. Even for sources that are not online or in portable format, indexes for more

and more sources of data are going online making it possible for more researchers to

locate archival materials all around the world.

3. With imagination it is possible to study more things through archives than once thoughtpossible.

4. It is frequently one of the least expensive ways for the lone scholar with limited expensesto study significant problems.

21.3.2. Weaknesses of Archival Research:1. Even though research subjects are not intruded on in any way there are still ethical issues

inherent in possibly making people or authorities aware of information that has been

considered private. The U.S. census enforces a strict 72-year-confidentiality rule on its


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raw data, but the Mormon

marketing research hbl

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