2. The Marketing Research Process: 11 Steps
• Step One: Establishing the Need for Marketing
Research
• Step Two: Defining the Problem
• Step Three: Establishing Research Objectives
• Step Four: Determining Research Design
• Step Five: Identifying Information Types and
Sources
• Step Six: Determining Methods of Accessing
Data
3. The Marketing Research Process: 11 Steps
cont…
• Step Seven: Designing Data Collection Forms
• Step Eight: Determining Sample Plan and Size
• Step Nine: Collecting Data
• Step Ten: Analyzing Data
• Step Eleven: Preparing and Presenting the Final
Research Report
4. The Marketing Research Process
Step One: Establish the Need for Marketing Research
• When Marketing Research is not needed
• The information is already available
• Decisions need to be made now
• You can’t afford research
• Costs outweigh the value of the research
5. The Marketing Research Process
Step Two: Define the Problem
• The most important step in the marketing
research process is defining the problem.
• What is your team’s problem?
6. The Marketing Research Process
Step Three: Establish Research Objectives
• What information is needed in order to solve the
problem?
• Primary
• Secondary
• Both
7. The Marketing Research Process
Step Four: Determine Research Design
• Exploratory Research: collecting information in
an unstructured and informal manner
• Descriptive Research: refers to a set of methods
and procedures describing marketing variables
• Causal Research (experiments and other
approaches): allows isolation of causes and
effects via use of experiment or surveys.
8. The Marketing Research Process
Step Five: Identify Information Types and Sources
• Secondary Data: information that has been
collected for some other purpose other than the
research at hand
• Primary Data: information that has been gathered
specifically for the research objectives at hand
9. The Marketing Research Process
Step Six: Determine Methods of Accessing Data
• Secondary Data: accessing data through sources such as
the Internet and library
• Primary Data: collecting data through methods such as
telephone, mail, online, and face-to-face (quantitative) and
observation studies and focus groups (qualitative)
• Both are excellent! Use both in your projects!
10. The Marketing Research Process
Step Seven: Design Data Collection Forms
• The design of the data collection form that is
used to ask or observe and record information in
marketing research projects is critical to the
success of the project. It is easy to write a set of
questions but very difficult to construct a
questionnaire.
• Questionnaires
• Observation Studies
11. The Marketing Research Process
Step Eight: Determine Sample Plan and Size
• Sample plan: refers to the process used to select
units from the population to be included in the
sample
• Sample size: refers to determining how many
elements of the population should be included in
the sample
12. The Marketing Research Process
Step Nine: Collect Data
• Data collection is very important because,
regardless of the data analysis methods used,
data analysis cannot “fix” bad data. 12
Nonsampling errors may occur during data
collection. These are related to poor design
and/or execution of the data gathering.
• Sampling errors may occur based purely on
chance
• Trying to make a decision on a population from a
sample
13. The Marketing Research Process
Step Ten: Analyze Data
• Data analysis: involves entering data into
computer files, inspecting data for errors, and
running tabulations and various statistical tests
• Data cleaning: process by which raw data are
checked to verify that the data have been
correctly input from the data collection form to
the computer software program
14. The Marketing Research Process
Step Eleven: Prepare and Present the Final
Research Report
• The last step is one of the most important phases
of marketing research.
• Its importance cannot be overstated because it is
the report, or its presentation, that properly
communicates the results to the client.
