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01 Introduction to marketing research

Marketing Research Skills For Public Policy (Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi)

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CHAPTER 1

Marketing research is the systematic and objective identification, collection, analysis, dissemination and
use of information to improve decision making related to the identification and solution of problems.
Systematic means that planning is required at all stages and that the procedures are methodologically
sound, well documented and planned in advance. Objective means that it provides impartial information,
free from the researcher’s personal bias.

Marketing research can be classified as problem-identification research and problem-solving research.

1. Problem-identification research helps identify and diagnose problems that are not apparent and yet
exist or are likely to arise in the future. Examples include market potential, market share, brand or company
image.

2. Once the problem has been identified, problem-solving research is undertaken to arrive at a solution.
The findings of problem-solving research are used in making decisions that will solve specific marketing
problems, such as pricing or promotion.

Problem-identification research and problem-solving research not only go hand-in-hand, but they also
follow a common marketing research process.

The marketing research process is a set of six steps that define the tasks to be accomplished in conducting
a marketing research study. These steps are:

1. defining the problem -> the researcher should consider the purpose of the study, relevant
background information, the information needed and how it will be used in making decisions;
2. developing an approach to the problem -> it consists of formulating analytical frameworks and
models, research questions and hypotheses and identifying the information needed;
3. formulating a research design -> to design a study that will test the hypotheses of interest, deter-
mine possible answers to the research questions, provide the information needed for making
decisions, determine the type of research to be conducted, defining the variables and design
appropriate scales to measure them;
4. doing field work or collecting data -> through, for example, personal interviewing, telephone or
mail

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5. analyzing the data -> each observation is checked and, eventually, corrected; through coding,
numbers or letter codes are assigned to each response to each question of the questionnaire. Data
are transcribed onto disks or storages or input directly into the computer and then analyzed to
provide input for decision making purposes;
6. presenting the report -> the report addresses the research questions, describes the approach, the
research design, data collection, and data analysis procedures and presents the results and the
major findings, which should be presented in a comprehensible format so that they can be readily
used in the decision-making process.

The steps are interdependent and iterative: at each step, the researcher should both look back at previous
ones and forward at following ones. The decision to conduct marketing research is not automatic.
Marketing research should be undertaken when the expected value of information it generates exceeds
the costs of conducting the marketing research project.

The marketing research industry consists of all internal and external suppliers who provide marketing
research services.

- An internal supplier is a marketing research department within the firm.

- External suppliers are hired to supply marketing research services and range from small (one or a
few persons) operations to very large global corporations. External suppliers can be classified as
full-service or limited-service suppliers.
Full-service suppliers offer the entire range of marketing research services (i.e. all the six steps of
the marketing research process). The services provided by these suppliers can be further classified
into:
o customized services -> offer a wide variety of marketing research services customized to
suit a client’s specific needs;
o syndicated services -> companies that collect and sell common pools of data designed to
serve information needs shared by many clients;
o Internet/social media services -> companies that specialize in conducting marketing
research on internet and social media

Limited-service suppliers specialize in one or few steps of the marketing research process and in:

- field services -> companies whose primary offer is data collection for research projects
- qualitative services -> services related to facilities, recruitment, and other for focus groups and
forms of qualitative research;

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- technical and analytical services -> companies that provide guidance in the development of the
research design and computer analysis of qualitative and quantitative data;
- other services -> such as branded marketing research products that are specialized in data
collection and analysis procedures developed to address specific types of marketing research
problems (e.g. Survey Sampling International, specialized in sampling design and distribution)

It’s often desirable to have both internal suppliers and external suppliers, which can conduct one or more
steps of the marketing research process. In general, long-term contracts with research suppliers are
preferable to selection on a project-by-project basis.

A marketing information system (MIS) is a formalized set of procedures for generating, analyzing, storing,
and distributing information to decision makers on an ongoing basis through the combination of external
marketing information with internal billing, production and other records. Such systems are differentiated
from marketing research in that they are continuously available. However, MIS’s potential is often not
achieved when the information is structured so rigidly that it cannot be easily manipulated. To overcome
this limitation, decision support systems (DSS) have built-in flexibility that allows decision makers to
interact directly with databases and analysis models. All the information generated by marketing research
should become a part of both MIS and of DSS.

International marketing research denotes all research conducted in markets other than the domestic
market of the research commissioning organization. It’s much more complex than domestic one because of
various environmental factors, such as government, legal, economic, structural, informational and
technological and sociocultural environments, that influence the way in which the six steps are performed.
However, it’s expected to grow at faster rate than domestic research.

Marketing researchers can make use of the new social networks to conduct marketing research in a way
that complements the use of the traditional methods. However, social media users may not be
representative of the target population in many marketing research applications because of at least two
bias: self-selection and advocacy.

The ethical issues in marketing research involve four stakeholders: the marketing researcher, the client, the
respondent and the public. Issues arise when these four have conflicting interests and when one or more is
lacking in its responsibilities.

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