Identify and share a marketing research concept that you wou

Identify and share a marketing research concept that you would like to understand better.

Solution

The term marketing research is used extensively in modem marketing management. It acts as a tool for accurate decision making as regards marketing of goods and services. It is also useful for studying and solving different marketing problems in a systematic and rational manner.

Research means detailed, systematic and comprehensive study of a problem. Here, the details of the marketing problems are collected and studied, conclusions are drawn and suggestions (recommendations) are made to solve the problems quickly, correctly and systematically. In marketing research, marketing problem is studied in depth and solutions are suggested to solve the problem relating to consumers, product, market competition, sales promotion and so on.

MR is a special branch of marketing management. It is comparatively recent in origin. MR acts as an investigative arm of a marketing manager. It suggests possible solutions on marketing problems for the consideration and selection by a marketing manager.

Definitions of Marketing Research

According to American Marketing Association (AMA), MR is \"The systematic gathering, recording, and analyzing of data about problems relating to the marketing of goods and services.\"

According to Richard D. Crisp, MR is \"The systematic, objective and exhaustive search for and study of the facts relevant to any problem in the field of marketing.\"

According to Philip Kotler, \"Marketing research is systematic problem analysis, model building and fact-finding for the purpose of improved decision-king and control in the marketing of goods and services.\"

Market research concept

Before introducing a new product or service to the market, it is necessary to carry out a preliminary study in order to analyse the characteristics of the consumer and check who are competitors, among other aspects.
However, this methodology applies not only at the time of starting a new business, is also recommended to perform continuously to rectify the during and after this process. It is feasible that, once released the product or service, emergence of new competitors or change the buying habits and consumer behaviour. But how do I know this? Precisely through the application of this method of study.

What is market research?

It is a process that reflects the needs, trends and market profile; as well as the opinion, conduct and consumer habits. This methodology can be applied using surveys (mail, telephone or personal), statistics, interviews, and focus groups (focus groups). Several types of market research: quantitative, qualitative, documentary and marketing. Each of them will yield different results, depending on the features and variables that you wish to study.
Before launching a methodology of this nature, it is necessary to ask ourselves what problem or aspect we want to investigate and why. Subsequently, we must select the type of analysis of information that we will use and design the sample. We then proceed to collect the data for later analysis and, finally, the findings and results are studied.
Data thrown by this process constitute a strategic guide to know who are our present and potential customers, which will help us to make more accurate decisions and designing a business plan and a much more focused marketing campaign.
There are several reasons why we conducted a market study: because we want to meet the needs of the customer, but we need to first know your preferences, social class, education and occupation, among other aspects. Another reason may be because we want to know the level of success or failure when you launch one new business, among others.

Steps In Marketing Research Process

The steps in the MR process (as noted above) are normally used in all MR projects. Certain modifications are also possible in a specific research project. The research process is lengthy and time consuming and needs to be completed in a rational and systematic manner. This gives promising results in the sense that appropriate solution to marketing problem is available.

Data Analysis in Market Research

The data analysis stage in a market research project is the stage when qualitative data, quantitative data or a mixture of both, is brought together and scrutinised in order to draw conclusions based on the data. These conclusions then provide the key insights for the research project and any associated reports or presentations.

The amount of data that can be collected and assembled in a market research study can be astronomical. Data organization and data reduction are two very important aspects of data analysis that is seldom highlighted. Yet, these steps are crucial to the ability to make sense out of data and to the ability to make cogent and insightful data interpretation. An impressive array of methods for data organization and data reduction are available.

A market researcher may tabulate data or compile frequency distributions. The means or averages and other measures of dispersion are common ways of analyzing data for which frequency distributions are available. Very often, advanced statistics and decision models are used to maximize the information that can be extracted from research data. The following section provides a brief description of several commonly used statistical tools, decision support models, and optimization routines

Quantitative Market Research Decision Support Tools

Statistical Methods