The role of Marketing Research

Résumé du document

To define and to understand marketing research it seems important to first explain what marketing is. Marketing is the foremost frame of mind and a group of techniques which allows organizations to improve their chances of success by making a correspondence between supply/products offered by the companies and demand/wants of consumers to optimize the sales. That's why marketing research is so essential: to make the good decisions and sell the good product to the good person, the companies must have the good information. But what does marketing research really mean? There are lot of definitions but I've selected this one because this seems very clear and very complete.

A market study consists on researching information about the market that the company wants to penetrate, then, and it has to know about the competition, the replacement products, the existing products, the supply and demand for them. The marketing research is the key tool of a great marketing approach: there are three steps: first the analysis of needs of information; secondly the selection of the information: it means true, reliable and useful information that must be collected and registered; and thirdly the analysis of these information with final recommendations.

Extraits

[...] But what does really mean Marketing Research? There is a lot of definitions but I've selected this one because she seems very clear and very complete. “Marketing Research is the function which links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer trough information information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions ; monitor marketing performance ; and improve understanding of marketing as a process. Marketing Research specifies the information required to address these issues ; designs the method for collecting information ; manages and implements the data collection process ; analyzes the results ; and communicates the findings and their implications” ( Source : Marketing Research 5th edition, Donald S.Tull; Del I Hawkins) A market study consists on researching information about the market that the company wants to penetrate, then, she has to know about the competition, the replacement products, the existing products, the supply and demand for them . [...]

[...] There is two forms of information : o Primary Data : also called primary research. Information that doesn't exist, and who must be created. There's two methods, the good one to choose depends on the types of information that we need : Quantitative Data : A lot of information about simple data, to collect it the most common way is to make a questionnaire and ask people to complete it ( by phone, mail, e-mail or on a direct mode : giving the questionnaire to the person) There is many ways to ask questions but it is recommended to use method it means ask first the opened questions ( what do you think of . [...]

[...] The loss of invests related to research and development of the car was estimated to $ This example shows us the usefulness of a detailed study market : the Americans warn were badly determined, perhaps because of a lack of or a misinterpretation of marketing researches. The Marketing Research is, quite ever, the base of any marketing decisions. In other words, the marketing research formalized means of obtaining information to be used in making marketing decisions. The decision-making process is the following one : Problem/Opportunity Identification : problems can be identified when objectives are established and when performance is not as well as expected it means that the objectives are not achieved. [...]

[...] In other words, a company must identify and analyze the wants and the needs of her publics and also research the market opportunities that she could develop. For example they have to search information such as : Competition: who they are ? What are their images on the consumer point of view ? How can a company differentiate herself from the each others ? Supply: who are the rivals or substitute of my product ? What are their prices ? What kind of service could escort the product ? Customers: what is my target ? [...]

[...] Then, the Marketing Research is the starting point of ever marketing action. Each market is specific and master it is essential to do not make too much mistakes that could file companies to bankruptcy. Concretely, the marketing research department in a company provides market studies. A market study consists in knowing perfectly the market in question that the company wants to penetrate or to perform in. The first step of the market study is to know what type of data do we really need and the second step is to collect information. [...]