Marketing Research Process.

The Marketing Research Process-

1. Defining the Problem: In order to carry out the research programme, the researcher should know the basic problem. He must be clear in mind as to what is exactly needed. The basic problem i.e., marketing problem is given importance and not the marketing research problem. A competent researcher will not accept a research project, until he understands the problem clearly. Thus crystalizing the marketing problem is fundamental.

After identifying the problem, the researcher formulates a plan when the problem is defined. The purpose of the project determines the nature of the problem and the ways to solve it. When the researcher gets a clear idea of the problem, he analyses the situation and understands more about the problem. He analyses the company, its markets, its competition etc. The informal investigation or preliminary exploration consists of getting background information relating to the problem.

2. Determining the Information Needed: The researcher must consider the information and decide which is relevant and which is irrelevant to the study. In determining the kind of information needed, the objectives of the research must be borne in mind. The information should be necessary and relevant. If the available data are insufficient, fresh data have to be collected.

3. Determining the Source of Information: The Source of information may be classified into primary source and secondary source. When the information is obtained directly, specially for the problem, it is known as primary data. When the information is already collected by someone for some other purpose, and at the same time is helpful to the problem on hand, it is known as secondary data (see collection of data).

4. Deciding Research Methods: When secondary data are insufficient, the researcher has to be satisfied with the primary sources of data. The sources may be by experimental method, observation method or survey method.

5. Tabulation, Analysis and Interpretation of the Data: After the collection of data, they are to be classified and tabulated into statistical summarization. They may be in percentage, average, ratios etc., so as to give the greatest value in the interpretation work. Interpretation is the important stage in the process of research. Correct interpretation of data makes a research meaningful.

The mean or median classifies the nature of the average respondent, and the standard deviation shows how far respondents are dispersed around the average. Tests of significance are useful in measuring whether two occurrences are related to each other. It is important, for example, to know whether a price decrease caused an increase in sales, or whether the two events just happened simultaneously.

Correlation and association provide a more sophisticated method of making the same kind of analysis done in cross tabulation. One of the most useful of these is regression analysis, which allows the researcher to estimate the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables and to determine whether or not one variable causes another.

1.     6.Preparation of the Report: Draw conclusions from the tabulated summaries. Conclusions, recommendations and suggestions supported by detailed analysis of findings, must be in a written form-report of the researcher.