Marketing Research
     The systematic design, collection, 
     and analysis, and reporting of data 
     relevant to a specific marketing 
     situation facing an organization.
    Marketing Research 
    Process
    1. Defining the problem and research 
      objectives
    2. Developing the research plan for 
      collecting information
    3. Implementing the research plan—
      collecting and analyzing the data
    4. Interpreting and reporting the 
      findings
      1. Defining the Problem and Research 
      Objectives
       What information is needed?
       Set the research objectives:
         To gather preliminary information that will help 
         define problems and suggest hypotheses: 
         exploratory research
         To better describe marketing problems, 
         situations, or market, such as the market 
         potential for a product or demographics and 
         attitudes of consumers who buy the product: 
         descriptive research
         To test hypotheses about cause-and-effect 
         relationships: causal research
    2. Developing the 
    Research Plan
     Researchers must determine the exact 
     information needed, develop a plan for 
     gathering  it efficiently, and present the 
     plan to management
     Research plan consists of sources of 
     existing data, specific research 
     approaches, contact methods, sampling 
     plans, gathering new data instruments 
     The research plan should be presented 
     in a “written proposal” 
    Primary and Secondary 
    Data
     Primary data: information collected 
     for the specific purpose at hand
     Secondary data: information that 
     already exists somewhere, having 
     been collected for another purpose