MARKETING RESEARCH

Marketing research is any set of techniques used to gather information and better understand a
company’s target market. Businesses use this information to design better products, improve user
experience, and craft a marketing strategy that attracts quality leads and improves conversion rates.

What is marketing research?

Marketing research encompasses a range of activities aimed at gathering information and data to help
your company better understand its target market. Once you capture market research data, you can
then leverage it to introduce or upgrade products, improve the customer experience, craft a sharper
marketing position, or help guide business decisions.

Market Research Methods

The role of research in marketing is to derive marketing insights from real data. We love marketing and
marketers—truly we do—but relying on marketers’ good sense and one-off customer interactions is a
reactionary, even dangerous, way to operate a business. It’s much safer to operate with real market
research data backing up your decisions.

You may also be wondering, what are the elements of marketing research? While the marketing
research process will look a little different for every organization, there are some marketing research
steps that are common in most scenarios. To build an effective marketing research study, most
marketers will follow some combination of the following market research steps or categories:
• Qualitative marketing research explores a topic from a descriptive or conceptual lens. With this type
of marketing research, participants describe from their perspective how something is or behaves, rather
than putting numbers to it.

• Quantitative marketing research is a purely numbers-driven approach. This type of research gathers
data from responses that can be counted or quantified.

• Ethnographic marketing research is any effort that attempts to gauge the marketing initiative or
product in a natural environment or with anthropology as its basis.

• Business to business (B2B) marketing research is any of the above or other methods or steps applied
in a B2B context. This category has a new set of challenges: getting any responses at all can be difficult,
and getting honest ones can in some situations be challenging.

There are four common types of market research techniques include surveys, interviews, focus groups,
and customer observation.

Four common market research methods:

• Surveys: the most commonly used
Surveys are a form of qualitative research that ask respondents a short series of open- or closed-
ended questions, which can be delivered as an on-screen questionnaire or via email. When we
asked 2,000 Customer Experience (CX) professionals about their company’s approach to
research, surveys proved to be the most commonly used market research technique.

• Interviews: the most insightful

Interviews are one-on-one conversations with members of your target market. Nothing beats a
face-to-face interview for diving deep (and reading non-verbal cues), but if an in-person meeting
isn’t possible, video conferencing is a solid second choice.

• Focus groups: the most dangerous

Focus groups bring together a carefully selected group of people who fit a company’s target
market. A trained moderator leads a conversation surrounding the product, user experience,
and/or marketing message to gain deeper insights.

• Observation: the most powerful

During a customer observation session, someone from the company takes notes while they
watch an ideal user engage with their product (or a similar product from a competitor).
Types of marketing research
Your research plan will include one or more types of marketing research. The intention of each of these
marketing research types is to identify, collect, analyze, and present specific solutions that your target
audience perceives as a problem.

There are four types of marketing research that are designed to help you collect data that is appropriate
for your audience.

• Exploratory research - have a fresh idea that no one has researched before? That’s the goal of
exploratory research to collect information about a problem and insights about how to solve the
problem. As a researcher, you will use secondary data that currently exists to provide insights
about your goal.
• Descriptive research - tests the research question to discover if it is accurate or inaccurate. This
method measures how often and to what extent variables in the study are correlated.
• Causal research - looks at the cause-and-effect relationship between variables. If one variable
changes, the researcher can record the impact on another variable. Causal research can answer
“what if” questions that include price changes, packaging changes, adding or removing product
changes and more.
• Predictive research - As the name implies, researchers are looking for what will happen in the
future. They may study future sales growth, user adoption, and market size based on data
collected about product preferences and customer demographics.

How to conduct market research

The following four steps will give you a solid understanding of who your users are and what they want
from a company like yours.

• Create simple user personas A user persona is a semi-fictional character based on

psychographic and demographic data from people who use websites and products similar to
your own.
• Conduct observational research Observational research involves taking notes while watching
someone use your product (or a similar product).
• Conduct individual interviews are one-on-one conversations with members of your target
market. They allow you to dig deep and explore their concerns, which can lead to all sorts of
revelations.
• Analyze the data The following techniques will help you wrap your head around the data
without losing yourself in it. Remember, the point of lean market research is to find quick,
actionable insights.
MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS
The marketing research process is a six-step process involving the definition of the problem being
studied upon, determining what approach to take, formulation of research design, field work entailed,
data preparation and analysis, and the generation of reports, how to present these reports, and overall,
how the task can be accomplished.

The marketing research process follows a series of sequential steps that allow you to focus your efforts
on understanding and addressing customer challenges.

Market research is only as good as the information it collects. That’s why it’s critical to follow a step-by-
step process that all leads to gathering quality data that is accurate and actionable. The following six
steps offer the roadmap to success:

1. Define the problem. Focus on the core customer challenge to solve.

2. Develop your research plan. Create a roadmap that includes identifying your target
audience, as well as determining what research tools to use, and the timeline and resources
for the project.
3. Gather your information. Whether you use surveys, interviews or other methods, you will
gather and organize your data. You can rely on qualitative and/or quantitative data to help
you get started.
4. Analyze your data. Review the data for meaningful insights and home in on key points that
will help inform your marketing campaigns and strategies.
5. Develop a strategy. Determine how your business can shape your future products and
services with the marketing research you’ve just done.
6. Take action. Plan those next steps, which may include new product development, further
concept testing, a new product launch, or fresh marketing campaign.

The marketing research process focuses on collecting insights from your target audience, such as their
opinions and attitudes that would help you evaluate current products, services, or test concepts aimed
at improving them. It can also gauge customer perceptions about your company. This is best known as
brand tracking.

EMBAYARTE, VENJIE GUINO. APRIL 11,

2023

GRADE 11 ABM C GANTT

PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING
MR. TEOFATRICK MANOLO L. BONJOC