What is marketing research? How does it help decision makers make better decisions?
7.2 Marketing Research
DEFINED: Marketing research is the acquisition and analysis of information used to identify and define marketing opportunities that connect consumers to marketers.
One of the first marketing research projects occurred in 1879
when advertising company N. W. Ayer & Son applied marketing research when creating ads for the Nichols-Shepard
Company,makers of agricultural machinery. N. W. Ayer & Son
wired state officials and publishers around the country asking for information on grain production.
Research is defined as “ the studious inquiry or examination; especially: investigation or experimentation aimed at the discovery and interpretation of facts,revision of accepted theories or laws in the light of new facts, or practical application of such new or revised theories or laws. Research can be classified as either applied or pure.
Applied research attempts to answer questions related to practical problems. if a small business owner wants to know where to locate his or her new restaurant, the owner would conduct applied research on a variety of topics including competition, traffic patterns, and level of consumer affluence near the proposed locations.
Pure research attempts to expand understanding of the unknown.Scientists searching for a cure for AIDS or cancer are conducting pure research. Applied research is much more common in business. Many different disciplines, from law to political history, utilize research,but marketing research is classified as either consumer marketing research or business-to-business marketing research. Consumer marketing research considers the behavior of individual consumers or groups of consumers. Business-to-business marketing research considers the behavior of businesses transacting with other businesses.
Research Types
Depending on the research design selected, a research classification will be selected. There are two types of research:
·Qualitative
·Quantitative
Qualitative research is a collection of techniques designed to identify and interpret information obtained through the observation of people.Qualitative research is generally considered subjective. It can be used in concert with quantitative research, a process to collect a large number of responses using a standardized questionnaire where the results can be summarized into numbers for statistical analysis. The analysis results can be used either to provide perspective prior to quantitative research or to further explore results from quantitative research. There are a variety of qualitative research techniques, including the following:
·Focus groups
·Structured interviews
·Ethnographic research
There are a variety of data-collection options when conducting quantitative research.These options include the following:
·Telephone
·In person
·Online
