Marketing Planning and Applications

Week 04

Conducting
Marketing Research
 Chapter Outline

•What is the scope of marketing research?

•What steps are involved in conducting good
marketing research?
•What are the best metrics for measuring marketing
productivity?.
 Marketing research
Marketing research is the function that links the consumer,
customer, and public to the marketer through information which
used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems.
Marketing research is the systematic design, collection, analysis,
and reporting of data relevant to a specific marketing situation
facing an organization.
Marketing insights provide diagnostic information about how and
why we observe certain effects in the marketplace.
Who Does Marketing Research?
•Companies have their own research departments
P&G’s Consumer & Market Knowledge (CMK)
•Engaging students or professors (crowd casting)
•Using the Internet
•Checking out rivals
•marketing partner expertise
•employee creativity and wisdom
•Most companies use a combination of marketing
research resources
Who Does Marketing Research?
Syndicated-service research firms
Nielsen Company, Kantar Group.
Custom marketing research firms
These firms are hired to carry out specific
projects. They design the study and report the
findings.
Specialty-line marketing research firms
These firms provide specialized research services.
sells field interviewing services to other firms.
The Marketing
Research Process
1.Define the Problem, and the
Research Objectives
2.Develop the Research Plan
3. Collect the Information
4. Analyzes the Information
5. Present the findings
6. Make the Decision
The Marketing
Research Process

1.Define the Problem, and the

Research Objectives
a) Marketing managers must not define the
problem too broadly or too narrowly for
the marketing researcher.
b) State research objectives
2) Develop the Research Plan
Develop the most efficient plan for gathering the
needed information and what that will cost.
To design a research plan, companies have to
make decisions about:
A) The data sources
B) The research approaches
C) The research instrument
D) The sampling plan
E) The contact method
2) Develop the Research Plan
A) The data sources
•Secondary Data
•Primary Data
Marketers collect primary data in five main
ways:
•Observational Research -Ethnographic research
•Focus Group Research
•Survey Research
•Behavioral Research
•Experimental Research- causal
C) The Research Instruments
1. Questionnaires
Questionnaires-Consists of a set of
questions presented to respondents.
Most flexible and most common type of
research instrument.
1. qualitative mesures, and
2. technological devices
C) The Research Instruments
Types of Questionnaires:
1. Closed-ended
Multiple Choice,
Likert scale,
Importance scale.
Semantic differential
Importance scale
Rating scale
Intention-to-buy scale
C) The Research Instruments
Types of Questionnaires:
2. Open-ended questions-
Completely unstructured
Word association,
Sentence completion.
Story completion
Picture
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
C) The Research Instruments
Qualitative Measures-
Are unstructured measurement
approaches that permit a range of
possible responses.
Technological devices
E.g., respiratory devices
D) The Sampling Plan
Designing a sample plan calls for three
decisions:
1. Sampling unit: Who should we survey?
2. Sample size: How many people should we
survey?
3. Sampling procedure: How should we
choose the respondents?
E) Contact Method
a) Mail Questionnaires-
b) Telephone Interviewing-
c) Personal Interviewing-
d) Online contacts
e) Research firms
3) Collecting Information
The data collection step is the most expensive and the
most prone to error.
Problems with collecting surveys:
Respondents will be away from home and must be
contacted again
Respondents may refuse to cooperate
Respondents will give biased or dishonest answers
Some interviewers will be biased or dishonest.
4) Analyze the Information
5) Present the Findings
4) Analyze the Information
Analyze the results of the findings by tabulating the
data and developing summary measures.

5) Present the Findings

Researchers must present findings relevant to the
major marketing decisions facing management.
Researchers are being asked to play a larger role in
translating data and information into insights and
recommendations.
6) Make the Decision
Managers must weigh the evidence from the
research findings.
If their confidence in the findings is low, they may
decide to not adopt the recommendations of the
study.
If their confidence in the finding is high, they may
decide to adopt the recommendation of the study
Manager may also ask for more research to be
done on the subject.
Disclaimer:
The contents of these slides are adapted from book
Marketing Management (15th Edition) by Philip T. Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller.
It is solely for the purpose of teaching marketing concepts and assessing
Marketing Planning and Applications student at Iqra University.
Thank you