Steps of Marketing Research
Market research involves gathering information and data about the size and trends in a particular marketplace. Marketing research includes market research and a variety of other processes and steps you can use to solve many types of marketing problems. Customers play a central role in the marketing research process. Whether you are creating a new marketing research initiative or modifying an existing program, there are a series of steps you should take.
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Instructions
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Define the need or problem. This is the central issue your marketing research will revolve around. Use current data like sales revenues, sales forecasts and customer demographics, purchase patterns and preferences to help you identify the problem you are trying to create a solution to through marketing research. Ensure the senior leadership team at your company agrees with the problem you identify, then write down your objectives for the marketing research plan.
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Develop your marketing research approach, which should align with your marketing research objectives. Assess you and your team's market research skills, establish a budget, develop an model for how you will analyze data and formulate a hypotheses for your market research. To develop the model for how you will analyze data and formulate a hypothesis, include a project overview, skills analysis that identifies which parts of the market research you will handle both internally and externally and a description of the economic environment in your industry.
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Design your research framework. This includes designing your research methodology, or how you will structure your marketing research; determining how you will measure question responses; designing your questionnaire; identifying your sample design and size; and determining data analysis you will use.
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Collect your data. Marketing research data collection, which is also called survey fielding, is when you use the finalized questionnaire to gather information among about your chosen sample segments. There are a variety of data collection methods you should consider, including Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI), Internet surveys, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), mail surveys, traditional telephone interviewing, internet panels or mail panels.
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Analyze your survey data. There are many types of statistical survey data analysis that you can use, including frequency distributions, crosstab analysis, multiple regression, cluster analysis, factor analysis, perceptual mapping, structural equation modeling and data mining.
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Develop a marketing research report. Communicate your overall research design and methodology, research framework, data collection methods and data analysis methods. State why the marketing research did or did not meet the objectives you identified. Include a list of key findings and insights you derived from the marketing research.
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