If you are in business, marketing research is an essential part of being successful. If we do not know who are target market customers are, we will not know how to reach them. We also need to realize why we are doing the marketing research. Do you want to understand your customer better? If we understand what products our customers prefer and why the purchase, we can market better to them? If you are having problems with your business or product, market research can uncover these issues and allow you to fix them and have a strategy to recover.
Part I of this book outlines the Stages of Research.
Stage 1: Identify the problem
- Ascertain your objectives
- Understand the problem background
- Isolate/Identify the problem not the symptoms
- Determine the unit of analysis
- Determine relevant things to ask about
- Translate marketing problem into researchable objectives
Stage 2: Designing the study
- Types of questions
- Data source
- Can you get accurate answers by simply asking people?
- How quickly is the information needed?
- How should survey questions be worded?
- How many questions should be asked?
Stage 3: Selecting a Sample
- Is the sample necessary?
- Can the target population by identified?
- How accurate must the sample be?
Stage 4: Gathering the data
- Who will gather the data?
- How long with it take to gather the data?
Stage 5: Analyzing the results
- Will standard editing and coding be used?
- How will data be categorized?
- What data analysis software will be used?
Stage 6: Communicating the findings
- Who will read the report?
- Will presentations be required?
- What format will the report be in?
As you can see, there is much to consider when creating marketing research for your business. These are just a few of the questions you must ask yourself as you journey through the stages of market research. We must also consider the cost, time-frame and our abilities when creating our market research plan. I look forward to reading more in this book. Stay tuned as I will be back with more information from the Market Research Kit for Dummies.
Hyman, M. R., & Sierra, J. J. (2010). Marketing research kit for dummies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
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