Market research
Lecturer: Dora Vulic
Learning objective
• To understand the rationale behind the
market research
Market Research
• The function that links the consumer,
customer and public to the marketer through
information – information used to indentify
and define marketing opportunities and
problems, to generate, refine and evaluate
marketing actions, to monitor marketing
performance and to improve understanding of
the marketing process.
(Kotler, The Principles of Marketing, 2001, pg 272)
The aim of the research
• Market researchers specify the information
needed to address marketing issues, design
the method for collecting information,
manage and implement the data collection
process, analyse the results and communicate
the findings and their implications.
The areas of the research
– Analyses of market potential
– Analyses of market share
– Customer satisfaction
– Customer purchase process
In house or outside?
• A company can conduct marketing research in
its research department or have it done
outside by a research firm. Large companies
normally have their own marketing research
department, other companies often use
outside firms to do special research tasks.
The market research process
1. Defining the problem and research objectives
2. Developing the research plan for collecting
information
3. Implementing the research plan – collecting
and analysing the data
4. Interpreting and reporting the findings
Defining the problem and research
objectives
• For example, a manager of a retail store
decides that poor advertising is causing falling
sales, so he orders research to test the
company’s advertising. The result showed that
current advertising is reaching the right
people with the right message. It turns out
that the chain stores are not delivering what
the advertising promises.
Research objectives
• A marketing research might have one of 3 types of
objective. The objective of exploratory research is to
gather preliminarily information that will help to
better define problems and suggest hypothesis.
• The objective of descriptive research is to describe
things such as the market potential for a product or
the attitudes of consumers who buy the product.
• The objective of causal research is to test hypothesis
about cause – effect relationship. Eg. If a 10% cut if
prices will increase the sales to offset the lost
margin?
Developing the research plan
• The plan outlines sources of existing data and
explains the specific research approaches,
contact methods, sampling plans and
instruments that researchers will use to gather
new data
Secondary and Primary Data
• Secondary data is information that already
exists somewhere, having been collected for
another purpose, called desk research.
• Primary data is information collected for a
specific purpose at hand, called field research.
• Researchers usually start by gathering
secondary data, the company’s internal
database provides a good starting point and
various external sources such as libraries and
government publications
Secondary research
Data previously collected for any purposes
other than the one at hand. Secondary
information originating within the company
includes documents such as annual reports,
reports to stockholders, product testing
results perhaps made available to new media
and house periodicals composed by the
company’s personnel for communication to
employees, customers or other
Secondary Data – Commercial data
source
• Companies can buy secondary data reports
from outside suppliers. For example, Nielsen
Media Research sells data on brand shares,
retails prices and percentage of stores
stocking different brands
Secondary data – Online databases
and Internet data
• Using commercial online database, marketing
researchers can conduct their own searches of
secondary sources. A recent survey of
marketing researchers found that 81% use
such online services for conducting research.
(Kotler, The Principles of Marketing, 2001, pg 274)
Advantages of secondary data
• Secondary data save time and money if they help
solve the researcher’s problem. Even if the
problem is not solved, secondary data have other
advantages. They can aid in formulating the
problem statement and suggest research
methods and other types of data needed for
solving the problem. In addition, secondary data
can pinpoint the kinds of people to approach and
their locations and serve as a basis of comparison
for other data
Disadvantages of secondary data
The disadvantages of secondary data stem mainly from
a mismatch between the researcher’s unique problem
and the purpose for which the secondary data were
originally gathered, which are typically different from
the required data
Often secondary data sources do not give detailed
information that would enable a researcher to assess
their quality or relevance. Whenever possible, a
researcher needs to address these important
questions: Who gathered the data? Why was the data
obtained? What methodology was used?
Primary Research
• Such research can be undertaken by research
organisations on commission, but can be
extremely costly. However, for the smaller
company, simple quantitative research can be
undertaken ‘in house’, providing it is
scientifically and systemically carried out. It is
better to leave more qualitative methods to
the experts.
Primary Research
• Primary research is the most precise way of
gathering information about a marketing
problem. Primary research requires the
development of specific research questions, a
research design to answer those questions,
observe the people behaviour systematically
and the collection of analysis of original data
Primary research
• Questionnaires designed to find out, for
example, whether existing customers would
continue to use the agency if it were to move
location, or whether clients would purchase
charter flights to Greece if these were
available from the local airport, but at a higher
cost than from London, are relatively
straightforward ‘number-crunching’ exercises
which, if carefully planned and executed, can
yield useful information.
Primary data
• Some of the methods to gather information
are:
• Surveys (online and phone)
• Questionnaires
• Focus group
Survey research
• The gathering of primary data by asking
people questions about their knowledge,
attitudes, preferences and buying behaviour.
Questionnaire
• A questionnaire is a primary research
instrument consisting of a series of questions
and other prompts for the purpose of
gathering information from respondents.
Focus group
• A sample is based on a discussion
• Used to find out in detail what customers
think, feel and observe
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