The document outlines the 11 steps in the marketing research process: 1) Establish need for research, 2) Define the problem, 3) Establish research objectives, 4) Determine research design, 5) Identify information types and sources, 6) Determine data collection methods, 7) Design data collection forms, 8) Determine sample plan and size, 9) Collect data, 10) Analyze data, and 11) Prepare and present the final report. It notes that not every project follows all steps exactly and describes some key aspects of several steps such as different research designs, data collection methods, and data analysis techniques.

1. The Marketing Research Process

2. Steps in the Marketing Research Process
 Few comments about the process:
1. It is rare in practice a research project follows all the
exact steps.
2. May not involve every step shown
3. What’s important is although every research project is
different, there are enough commonalities to follow the
eleven steps of marketing research.

3. Steps in the Marketing Research Process
1. Establish the need for the marketing research.
2. Define the problem.
3. Establish research objectives.
4. Determine the research design.
5. Identify information types and sources.
6. Determine the methods of accessing data.
7. Design data collection forms.
8. Determine sample plan and size.
9. Collect data.
10. Analyze data.
11. Prepare and present the final research report.

4. Step 1: Establish the Need for Marketing
Research
 A good monitoring system constantly searches for hints
that the companies marketing mix may be out of “sync” in
the market place.
 Marketing research may not be needed
 Information is already available
 There is insufficient time for marketing research
 Resources are not available
 Costs outweigh the value of the research

5. Step 2: Define the Problem
 Problem definition involves:
1. Specifying the symptoms
2. Itemising the possible causes of the symptoms
3. Listing the reasonable alternative courses of action that
the marketing manager can undertake to solve the
problem.

6. Step 3: Establish the Research Objectives
 Research objectives identify what specific pieces of
information are necessary to solve the problem at
hand.
 Research objectives also specifies what the
managers are trying to achieve through the
research.

7. Step 4: Determine Research Design
 There are three types of research design:
1. Exploratory Research Design – Explorator research is research conducted
for a problem that has not been clearly defined. Examples: Reading
periodicals, visiting competitors premises, examine company sales and
profits vs. industry sales and profit, clipping service.
2. Descriptive Research Design - refers to a set of methods and procedure
that describe marketing variables. Descriptive research is used to
describe characteristics of a population or phenomenon being studied. it
addresses the "what" question (what are the characteristics of the
population or situation being studied?)
3. Causal Research Design – designs allow us to isolate causes and their
effects.
By changing one factor, say price, we can monitor its effect on a key
consequence, such as sales. In other words, causal design allows us to
determine causality, or which variable is causing another variable to
change.

8. Step 5: Identify Information Types and
Sources.
Basically two types of data information available to
a marketing researcher:
A. Secondary data – as it name implies, refers to
information that has been collected for some other
purpose.
B. Primary data - refers to information that has been
gathered specifically to serve the research
objectives at hand.

9. Step 6: Determine Methods of Accessing
Data
Once the researcher has determined which type or types of
information are needed, he or she must determine methods of
accessing data.
Methods of accessing external secondary data have improved over
the last five years:
 Information processing technology.
 Easy and Quick retrieval.
 Internal data- company reports, salespersons, executives, MIS and
other information sources.
There are several different methods of collecting primary data
including:
 Telephone surveys
 Mail surveys
 Door-to-door interviews
 Mall-intercept studies
 New data collection methods are emerging.

10. Step 7: Design Data Collection Forms
 Questionnaires and observation forms must be designed
with great care.
 Structured Questionnaires - list questions that have pre-
specified answer choices.
 Unstructured questionnaires – have open ended questions
and/or questions that are asked based on a response.
 Disguised Questionnaires -true object of the study is not
identified.
 Undisguised Questionnaires - respondent is made fully
aware of the purpose/or sponsor of the survey.

11. Step 8: Determine Sample Plan and Size
 A sample plan identifies who is to be sampled and how to
select them for study.
 A sample element refers to a unit of the entity being
studied.
 A sample Frame is a list from which the sample elements
are drawn for the sample.
 Sampling Methods are available to help the researcher
determine the sample size required for the research study.
Probability and non probability sampling

12. Step 9: Collect Data
 Data collection is usually done by trained interviewers who
are employed by field data collection companies to collect
primary data.
 Being aware of errors that may occur is important.

13. Step 10: Analyse Data
 Data analysis involves entering data into computer files,
inspecting it for errors and running tabulations and various
statistical tests.
 Data cleaning – process by which the raw data are checked
to verify that the data has been correctly inputted from the
data collection form to the computer software program.
Use SPSS
 Coding – is the process of assigning all response categories
a numerical value males=1, females=2.

14. Step 11: Prepare and Present the Final
Research Report
 Preparing the marketing research report involves
describing the process used, building meaningful
tables, and using presentation graphics for clarity
and presenting it in a standardized manner

15. DIFFERENCES B/W MKIS V/S MARKETING RESEARCH :
MARKETING RESEARCH :
 It is post mortem
 Marketing research is not
continuous
 Marketing research became
popular in 1950’s
 Marketing research may be or
may not be.
 To achieve certain objective
marketing research is
conducted.
 Marketing research is a part of
MKIS.
MKIS :
 It is future oriented
 MKIS is continuous
 MKIS became popular in 1960’s
 MKIS uses computer
 The main objective is to assist decision
making
 MKIS is wider scope