Assignment 2.

Tips on Preparing a Research Proposal

Before reading this, make sure you have read the Assignment brief, the Assignment
instructions, and the marking rubric. You should base your assignment on those
documents. These are just some tips and hints that may help you along the way.

General Comments
A few things to keep in mind:
 A research proposal is about how you will do research to address the marketing
problem. You do not need to solve the problem, just talk about how you would
get information to help solve it
 The key thing in this assignment is to make sure that each of the sections link
together. For example, it should be clear how you will answer each of the research
questions through your chosen research design
 As you work on this assignment, it is important to keep in mind your target
audience—i.e., the manager who is the decision maker. Think about what
information they would like to know before agreeing to commission the marketing
research project.

Tips for each section

Many students have voiced confusion about what to include in each section of the report. Here
are some tips.

Executive Summary (5%)

As the name suggests, an Executive Summary is written for Executives who do not have time to
read the full proposal. Think of this like an elevator pitch; if you only had 2 minutes to explain
to the CEO what your proposal was about, what would you say?

Tips:
 This is a summary of the proposal, not an introduction! Someone should be able to
read only this section and decide whether they want to commission the research or not
 You need to include a summary of every section of the report including the key details
 Write this section last to make sure it fits the rest of the proposal
 Dot points can be useful

Background (5%)
The background should provide relevant information to set the scene of the proposal. In a
Research Proposal this generally provides a summary of the research brief (including the
research objectives and research questions) that this proposal is responding to.

Tips:
 This section is low marks for a reason. It is largely just to summarise your understanding
of the client’s problem and the purpose of the research.

Secondary Data (15%)

Remember that we discussed research should always start with secondary data, to determine what
can already be answered by existing data/ research. In a Research Proposal, we should summarise
what secondary data is available, and therefore what research questions can already be answered.
This helps lead to the Research Design, as there may be Objectives or Questions we will not need
to collect data for.
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 Tips:
 You should include 2 main sources of information; secondary data, and academic
literature. It is up to you if they are separate sections or combined.
 Make sure to link this to the Objectives and Questions in the brief we are responding to.
E.g. you may include something like this:

“Useful secondary data about xxx can be found in a report by xxx (REFERENCE). This report
highlights xxx, xxx, and xxx. This data can be used to address Research Objective xx, meaning
that this research proposal does not need to address that Objective”

 Don’t forget to reference!

Research design (35%)

In this section, you need to describe the research project that you would use to answer your
research questions. For example, will you use exploratory research? Or will you use
descriptive or causal research? Within these categories, what specific methods will you
apply? Importantly, you will also need to discuss your target population and sampling.

This section is one of the most important in the proposal, it shows that you understand how
marketing research works.

Tips:
 Make sure you justify your choice of research design
o Why is it the most relevant for your research problem?
o Think about the pros and cons we discussed in class
 You may include multiple research methods (e.g. focus groups AND surveys, or
netnography and interviews etc.) as separate phases of research (see below)
o If you do, make sure you justify why each is included
o You will then also need to talk about your sampling method for each phase
 Make sure to show how each phase/ method will answer the research questions
o Be specific, e.g. “this will answer research question 1 by providing …”
 Your proposed research design needs to be realistic given the time and budget
constraints of the research brief.

Example (very brief, yours will be MUCH longer):

To address the research objectives, this research project will have two phases:
Phase One: Focus Groups
A series of x focus groups will be conducted with ?? participants per group. The group
discussion will focus on xx and xx in relation to research question 1. Focus groups have
been chosen because of their ability to result in xx and xx. The sample for this phase will
be selected by xx, based on a sampling frame sourced by xx.

Phase Two: ??

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Ethics (10%)
As Marketing Researchers, we are guided by a number of codes of conducts and national
statements on how research should be conducted. In this section you should mention the ethical
considerations that apply to your research design, and how you plan to meet the relevant
requirements.

Research Instrument(s) – Appendix (15%)

In the Appendix you need to provide a copy of the research instruments you will use to collect
your data/ conduct your research. For example, if you do focus groups or qualitative
interviews, you need to provide a discussion guide. If you do surveys you need to provide your
questionnaire, etc.

This is not included in the word count, and you can attach multiple research instruments if
needed.
The key in this section is to make sure that you have addressed all of your research questions.
Make sure there is nothing missing. Also look at the content about questionnaire design and
how to do that properly (e.g. question wording etc.).