The Research Process in Marketing

The research process systematically outlines the steps that a company needs to take in order to finish
research.

As with other tasks, getting started in the research process is challenging. Since the research problem
and objectives are the bases of the entire research, you must be careful in identifying them. Incorrect
or inappropriate research problems and objectives may generate data that will not be useful for the
company.

Identifying the Research Problem and Objectives

The first step of the research process requires identifying the problem or the issue that a company
wants to address. A research problem can be an issue to be resolved, a challenge to be addressed, a
difficulty to be eliminated, or an area of concern for the company. For example, if a company
experiences losses during peak season, it may want to investigate the cause of losses to act upon it; or
if a company posts unusually high sales during an off-peak season, it may want to investigate how to
further capitalize on the sudden increase in sales. Either way, the company needs valuable data in
order to make marketing decisions. Sometimes, a company does not understand what exactly its
consumers want. Doing research to further understand consumer preferences can help a company
decide on its product features in the future.

The research objectives state the specific goals that the research wants to achieve. These will serve
as the guide throughout the conduct of the research. There are many types of research. The objective
of the research usually dictates the type of research that you are going to do.

If the objective is to collect additional information to understand a certain problem and to suggest
hypo eses about this problem, you are doing exploratory research. An of this type of research in
marketing is a study determining which celebrity is a better endorser of a product based on consumers'
perception of the celebrity. In this particular study, you will look into the general image of a certain
celebrity (e.g., wholesome or sexy), and how the consumers would feel if this celebrity endorses a
brand or product.
If the objective is to describe or understand the characteristics of, for example, the target market of a
product, you are doing a descriptive research. An example of this type of research would be a study
of a company who wants to introduce a new brand of ballpoint pens to college students. In this
particular study, the company would want to know the typical ballpoint pen consumption behavior of
students when they use it and what they use it for (e.g., note-taking, doodling, art making, etc.), and
the features that they look for in a ballpoint. pen (can be erased, does not blot, does not bleed, etc.).

Lastly, if the objective is to test the effect of a variable, you are doing a causal or experimental
research. This type of research aims to test the hypotheses in cause-and-effect relationships. For
example, a fast-food company may study the effects of increasing the price of their fried chicken from
P79 to P89. Will consumers still buy it? Will the demand decrease? Will people patronize its
competitors instead?

In general, researchers may start with exploratory research to understand the problem and issues better
and then later on decide to pursue descriptive or causal research (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014).
Developing the Research Design
The second step in the research process is: developing the research design, which determines the
specific plan in order to obtain the needed information to address the research problem. In this step,
the management or the researcher needs to find out. to decide on the research approach, data
collection method, and needed instruments, If, for example, a company decides to put up a
convenience store which is open 24 hours, seven days a week in a target location, the research must
obtain specific information on the following:

Big Idea

In conducting a research, it is essential to have a clear vision of what the company needs and what it
wants

➢ population density in the area, and its demographic and lifestyle characteristics.
➢ presence of other businesses that are open 24/7, and proximity of the proposed area to these
businesses
➢ consumption behavior (what the consumers eat during their breaks, how often they take
breaks, what they buy as takeout)
➢ presence of competitors in the area (other convenience stores, supermarkets, small grocery
stores)
➢ foot traffic in the area (number of people passing by the area, accessibility of the proposed
location) .

The company will need all this specific information to determine if the proposed location is profitable.
A written research proposal is usually submitted to the top management to ensure that the scope of the
research covers the information needed by the company.
Data Collection

After the research proposal has been approved, the next step in the research process is data collection.
There are two types of data that a company can use in research: primary data and secondary data.

Primary data consist of information collected specifically for the research. Data from surveys or
interviews are examples of primary data. Secondary data, on the other hand, are existing information
collected for reasons other than for the specific research. Secondary data include internal data that
can be found within the company such as sales history, existing research projects, and customer
database. Secondary data can also include external data which are collected by an outside
organization such as population statistics, published articles, and commercial data being sold by
research companies.

Research may be done using purely secondary data. However, should the company require the
generation of primary data, sampling techniques must be employed in order to select the respondents.

Another thing to consider when doing research is whether to do a qualitative or quantitative research.
Qualitative research generates data that give descriptive, nonstatistical information. This is usually
generated by asking open-ended questions (questions with no choices as the respondents are asked to
come up with their answers). Quantitative research yields empirical and statistical information that is
usually generated by asking questions with choices. Table 3.1 shows sample questions that generate
quantitative and qualitative data.
Notice that for questions that generate quantitative data, the answers are already defined and the
respondents only have to select their answer from the given choices. Data from this method are easier
to analyze because of the set number of answers that the questions will generate. On the other hand,
questions that generate qualitative data are usually used for probing deeper into the answers of the
respondents. They are open-ended, and the respondents can say anything without being limited to just
a few choices. Data from this method can be a rich source of information, but can be more tedious to
analyze because of the number of different answers the questions can generate.

Sampling is the method of choosing the respondents to represent a portion of the population. The
group of respondents chosen through any sampling method is called a sample. This group represents
the characteristics of the total population. Sampling is done because doing a survey of all members of
the population (for example, 10 million customers of a fast-food company) is a daunting task, if not
impossible, especially with time and budget considerations.

Sampling can be done through probability sampling, where everyone in the population being studied
has a known chance of being selected as a respondent and results are more likely to accurately reflect
the entire population. Sampling can also be done through nonprobability sampling which is more
subjective and makes little attempt to get a representative cross section of the population. Table 3.2
lists some examples of probability and nonprobability sampling designs (Schiffman and Wisenblit,
2015).