Part I
Marketing Research: Learn It, Live It, Love It
In this part . . .
This part introduces you to marketing research and tells you how to begin the process of creating a research plan. In Chapters 1 through 3, we summarize the research process and the basic types of research you may conduct. In Chapter 4, we discuss the ethical doâs and donâts for research doers and research consumers. Chapter 5 shows you how to choose, work with, and assess the efforts of marketing researchers you may hire.
Chapter 1
Seeing What Marketing Research Can Do for You
In This Chapter
Defining marketing research
Examining marketing information systems in context of marketing research
Reviewing problem-identification research and problem-solving research
Relating the product life cycle to your research needs
Identifying when itâs wise to conduct and avoid marketing research
Marketing research is more than those annoying people who call you during dinner to ask you a series of questions. Itâs also more than those oddly cheerful people at the mall â with clipboard and pencil in hand â who want to ask you seemingly innumerable questions rather than let you shop.
Marketing research is about knowing, understanding, and evaluating. As human beings, we want to know whatâs happening in our world and understand why those things are happening. We also want to identify the best choice from the alternatives available to us and then measure the success of that choice. Marketing research is both an intellectual and artistic activity. To solve marketing problems, you must obtain the necessary information and interpret it properly, which requires careful thought as well as creativity and artistry.
In this chapter, we define marketing research, compare it to marketing information systems, discuss when it should be pursued or avoided, detail its components, and explain its value in making informed and appropriate business decisions. This chapter gives you a better understanding of the systematic and objective nature of marketing research and how it can help you make better marketing-related decisions.
What Is Marketing Research?
Although professors and textbook authors have proposed many different definitions of marketing research, an appropriate and simple definition is this: Marketing research is the systematic and objective process of generating information to help you make marketing-related decisions. For a more comprehensive definition, itâs hard to go wrong with the latest one proposed by the American Marketing Association (AMA), the largest association of marketing practitioners and academicians in the world.
Although powerful, marketing researchers canât replace managers. Think of it this way: A hammer canât bang its own nail, and a computer canât write its own report. Similarly, a marketing research study canât make a decision for you or anyone else. The results of a marketing research study should be one of many inputs into a marketing-related decision. With the information in this book, youâll better recognize the extent to which you should trust different kinds of research and which type of study you should use to make different marketing-related decisions.
Marketing research can be any of the following three things: It can be fast, in the sense that it can be completed quickly.
It can be good, in the sense that the results can reflect reality accurately.
It can be cheap, in the sense that the researcher can choose a less costly design among comparable research designs.
Unfortunately, each research project can be only two of these three things. If a research project is good and fast, then it wonât be cheap. If itâs good and cheap, then itâs impossible to conduct it quickly. Finally, if itâs fast and cheap, then itâs unlikely to produce accurate findings.
Comparing Marketing Research to Marketing Information Systems
Differentiating marketing research from marketing information systems is essential because the data provided by each varies and the manner and context in which those data are used also vary.
Marketing information systems have four components:
Internal data: This type of data is generated from accounting records and data on sales, costs, and inventories. Because this type of data is organized according to accounting needs rather than according to marketing needs, it may be necessary to convert that data into a form thatâs more readily suited to marketing purposes.
Marketing intelligence: This intelligence comprises observations and data from existing publications or companies, such as syndicated data services that are dedicated to providing such data. (We talk more about these sources in Chapter 13.) By observations we mean managersâ or business ownersâ observations of and interactions with sales force members, distributors, suppliers, or other managers or co-owners.
An analytical system: This system is developed by marketing scientists who create empirical models meant to help managers make better decisions. Because such a system relies on sophisticated statistical methods and computer algorithms, the mangers who use one often donât understand its inner workings. Fortunately, not understanding whatâs under the hood is no more a problem for managers than it is for automobile drivers. Of course, most drivers must take their car to a mechanic when it breaks because they donât know how to fix it; similarly, most managers must ask a marketing scientist to fix an analytical system that no longer produces useful information.
Marketing research: This is a component of the information system thatâs triggered by observations or trends revealed by the ongoing data-collection process. For example, the first three components of a marketing information system may reveal a sales decline in one geographical region, but itâs unlikely they include the information needed to create marketing strategies and tactics to reverse that decline. However, a marketing study of consumers, retailers, and wholesalers may suggest the cause of the decline, which ...