You can conduct your own marketing research. Follow these steps, add your flair, knowledge, and creativity, and you’ll have tailor-made research to be proud of.
Marketing research are all those actions we conduct in the development, positioning, and evolution of our products or services, our customer base, and branding. It all starts with brand awareness. Like any research, it needs a solid process to be credible and useful.
Marketing research uses four essential key factors known as the ‘marketing mix’, or the Four Ps of Marketing:
These four factors must work in harmony for a product or service to be successful in the market.
A typical marketing research process is as follows:
In many ways, research begins with a management problem. This problem must be understood, the cause diagnosed and the solutions developed.
But, most management problems are not always easily researched, so they must first be transformed into research problems. Once you approach the problem from a research point of view, a solution can be found.
For example, “sales don’t grow” is a management problem, but translated into a search problem, it becomes “why don’t sales grow?” We can examine the expectations and experiences of different groups: prospects, first buyers, and repeat buyers. We can ask ourselves if the lack of sales is due to:
This, then, is the difference between a management problem and a research problem. Solving Management Problems Focus on Actions: Do We Advertise More? Shall we change our advertising message? Shall we change an underperforming product configuration? And if so, how?
Defining Research Problems, on the other hand, focuses on the whys and hows, providing the insights you need to solve your management problem.
The scientific method is the standard for investigation. It gives you the opportunity to use existing knowledge as a starting point and to proceed impartially.
The scientific method includes the following steps:
This terminology is similar to the steps in the search process. However, there are subtle differences in how the steps are performed:
In addition to selecting an investigation method (objective or subjective), a research method must be selected. There are two primary methodologies that can be used to answer any research question:
Research design allows you to conduct marketing research and collect data. Those are the specific methods and procedures you can use to get the information you need.
There are three main types of marketing research designs: exploratory, descriptive, and causal.
This is a starting point for research. It is used to reveal facts and opinions on a particular topic, and to get an idea of the main points of an issue. Exploratory research is too dull a tool to base definitive business decisions on, but it lays the foundation for a more focused study. Secondary research materials such as trade publications, books, magazines, and journals and primary research using qualitative metrics can be used, which can include open-text surveys, interviews, and focus groups.
This helps define the business problem or issue so companies can make decisions, take action and track progress. Descriptive research is naturally quantitative – it needs to be statistically measured and analyzed, using more targeted surveys and questionnaires. It can be used to capture demographic information, evaluate a product or service for the market, and monitor the opinion and behavior of a target audience.
This is useful for exploring the cause and effect relationship between two or more variables. Like descriptive research, it uses quantitative methods, but it doesn’t just report results; uses experiments to predict and test theories about a product or market. For example, researchers can change the design or material of the product’s packaging and measure what happens to sales as a result.
When identifying and implementing what are the steps in the Marketing Research Process, sampling has a paramount position.
Your marketing research project will rarely look at an entire population. It is more practical to use a sample – a smaller but accurate representation of the larger population. To design your sample, you will need to answer these questions:
This important step involves cost and accuracy decisions. Larger samples generally reduce the error margin and increase accuracy, but also increase costs.
Your research project will develop as you choose the techniques to use. There are many ways to collect data, and we will differentiate them into O-data (Operational) and X-data (Experience):
When you combine O-data with X-data, you will be able to build a more complete picture of success and failure – you will know why. Perhaps you have seen a drop in sales (O-data) for a particular product. Maybe customer service was lacking, the product was out of stock, or the ad wasn’t impactful enough or different: X-data will reveal why those sales dropped. So while the differentiation of these two datasets is important, when they are combined and work together, insights become powerful.
Mobile technology has made it easier to collect data. Polling is not done face-to-face anymore, but by mail or by telephone. Today, you have the following tools at your disposal:
Another way to collect data is observation. Observing the past or present behavior of a customer or company can predict future purchasing decisions, like market segmentation, customer journey mapping, and brand tracking.
Regardless of how you collect the data, the process introduces another essential element to your research project: the importance of clear and constant communication.
And of course, in order to analyze the information obtained with the techniques of investigation or observation, you have to record your results. Gone are the days of spreadsheets. Feedback from polls and listening channels can automatically feed AI-powered analytics engines and produce real-time results on dashboards.
Statistical tests and data processing tools can reveal:
There are several types of statistical analysis tools used for surveys. You should make sure that the ones you will choose:
Here are some of the more common tools:
Stats IQ can run the most complicated statistical tests at the push of a button, using our online survey software or data from other sources.
Once you have a clear picture on what are the steps in the marketing research process, you implemented them as described above, it’s time to take a look at the results of your research.
Your marketing research process culminates in the search results. These should provide all the information stakeholders and decision-makers need to understand the project.
The results will include:
They should also be presented in an easy-to-understand form, language, and graphics, with a balance of completeness and conciseness, without leaving out important information or leaving it so technical that it overwhelms readers.
Traditionally, two written reports are prepared:
There are now more engaging ways to present your findings than traditional PowerPoint presentations, charts, and face-to-face reports:
You can also make these results shareable so that decision-makers have all the information at their fingertips.
Insights are one thing, but they are worth very little if they don’t inform immediate, positive action. Here are some examples of how you can do this:
Now that we have seen what are the steps in the marketing research process, analyzed the results, and acted upon them, we are ready to optimize and just wait out for the fruits of our work.
Marketing research is an essential element of any business that wants to see results and growth. Without it, you will never get the full potential of your brand, but if conducted in an optimal fashion there are no limits to your success.
Of course, there are other very important aspects of your business like social media marketing, content, traffic… But, without proper marketing research, you are shooting yourself in the foot.
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