Planning Plays A Key Role In Making Your Marketing Research Easier
In my article “Your Simple Introduction To Marketing Research“, I discussed the basics to the marketing research process. Today I will be going into 6 steps to give you a straight forward guide with your marketing research.
“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.”
This famous quote was said by Dwight D. Eisenhower when referring to the success of the Allied offensive on D-Day, on June 6, 1944. The Normandy Landings is still to this day the largest amphibious assault in history. Without proper planning, your marketing research will fail.
This 6 step approach will help clarify your goals and objectives as a market researcher.
6 Step Approach to Marketing Research Success
1) Problem Definition
Define the problems that your research will answer. Explain the real opportunities in greater detail. Take into consideration the financial situation, the market, the geographical location of the business, etc. The easiest thing to do at this step is to find secondary information via Internet.
2) Develop An Approach to the Problem
Identify the objectives to your research. The more specific your objectives are, the better. You can also create a hypothesis, but this will require more statistics.
Example: Is it to find out why you’re losing customers? Or is it to see if Product A was better than Product B? Is the store needed? Is the location good? Does the consumer prefer a competitor’s product more?
3) Research Design
This is where you’ll be figuring out how you will be conducting your research. There are multiple methods of research that you can use. There’s exploratory research design and conclusive research design, just to name a few.
Example: Research methods, data collection method, sampling design, instrument design, and pilot testing.
4) Data Collection
Also called field work. The quality of the data depends on the data collection. This step should particularly be very well planned because we are dealing with consumers.
5) Data Preparation and Analysis
After you have collected all your data, you can edit, revise, etc. You’ll want to choose the most suitable statistical analysis and use software to interpret the data that you have collected. An example of a good software program would be IBM’s SPSS. This product is essentially Microsoft Excel on steroids.
6) Report Preparation and Presentation
We’re going to have to do an interpretation of the results. This is a very critical part of the marketing research job. You’re going to want to prepare a formal report for the client that’s based on the standard format.
Marketing Research Might Be Simple, But You Must Be Thorough
These six steps to guide you through your marketing research might be straight forward, but that doesn’t mean it won’t take some effort.
What Tips Do You Have For Making Marketing Research Easier?
Are there certain tools that your rely on to help you through the market research process? Different guidelines than are listed above? Leave your insight to marketing research in the comments below.