The Marketing Research Process: 7 Steps to Project Success

Marketing research is a broad concept that involves collating and organizing data to generate meaningful results that will be useful to a business growth. As a business, carrying out marketing research is vital because it doesn't only helps minimize risk and make wise decisions, but it could also help increase a business's profit.

Foundeck in this guide, have analyzed 7 important marketing research steps to take for project success.

What is Marketing Research?

Marketing research involves the process of gathering, analyzing and interpreting data to generate valid results that are important in making wise business and marketing decisions. It is a complex process that cuts across analyzing marketing strategies and trends, studying customers’ behavior and needs, product development, management and branding, advertising and sales and so on. Marketing research provides useful insights about the business and marketing process and, as such, forms the basis for making decisions for an organization.

The 7 Marketing Research Process

To carry out effective marketing research, here are the 7 steps to follow.

1. Identify the Problem

Defining the problem is the first step in marketing research. Here you need to clearly define the problem that you’re trying to solve. You must be able to state what you are trying to know or find out, as this will guide the purpose of the research. Apart from that, it will help you understand the information you’re trying to get and how best to get them.

Getting to identify the problem will guide you in clearly stating the research questions which will form the basis for which you will be carrying out the research. The research question therefore must be explicitly stated to include the cause of the problem and what the problem is possibly are.

At this stage, it is important to collaborate with other team members to correctly figure out what the problem is and redefine it when necessary. In most cases, what you see as the problem might not be the main issue, so you need the input of others to work out this step. All of these will help guide the formulation of the research objectives or what the project stands to find out.

2. Define the Objectives

Once you have identified the problem and determined your research question, formulating and defining the research objectives becomes less tasky. You would need to find out what you wish to gain from the research. This includes stating the information you wish to explore from the research.

Research objectives are important because you can easily refer to them to see if they are achieved or not after the course of the project. They must therefore be stated in simple clear terms.

Do you wish to find out if a marketing strategy works for the company? Are you seeking to find out the best targeting audience for your product or services or do you wish to identify some specific behaviors of your target audience? All of these must be formulated in achievable and explicit ways.

3. Formulate the Research design

Formulating your research design involves an extensive process of determining how you wish to carry out your research. This involves creating a research plan, determining the method of data collection and analysis, projecting your sample and population, finding out what your budget is and the total cost of carrying out the project, determining the research methods, etc. All of these must be done here to direct the research on the right path. Importantly, there are 2 types of research methods that could be used. These include primary and secondary research.

Primary research method involves gathering first-hand data from the sample. It involves using data collection methods like surveys, observation and interviews to collate data directly from the source. This type of research method could be costly and time-consuming, but it could potentially help your company get the most accurate results since they are obtained from the main source.

Secondary research methods, on the other hand, involve gathering data or information from third parties. This kind of information already exists and is readily available to the public for use. This includes information obtained from websites, research reports, governmental bodies, public and private organizations, and so on. In as much as information isn’t gotten directly from a sample, then it remains secondary data. While many researchers utilize primary research, secondary research methods remain their available first source of information.

Apart from determining the research methods, specification of the researchers, how to conduct the research, method of data collection and analysis, data interpretation and the overall scope of the research are covered here. Importantly, how the research design is developed depends greatly on what you wish to find out, that is the objective, the company's budget, availability of time and the scope of the research.

4. Collect data

The collection of data helps you generate meaningful information that will help answer the question and determine the result of the study. With the use of resources from the internet, magazines and newspapers, previous reports and so on, you will be able to collect secondary data. But beyond that, you also need to collate your information from the primary source and, as such, you will need to use data collection methods.

With that, you could generate this information by asking for clear, non-ambiguous information from the target audience. You can also observe them or ask them direct questions while you listen and note down their responses. You will be able to do this through surveys, interviews, and so on.

Data collection process is important as it greatly determines the results that will be gained from the research and as such you must ensure that you get the information from the correct target audience or sample, make sure that the questions or information to be gathered are coherent with the research questions and objectives and more so, the sample to be used are in their right state of mind when the information is being gathered and so on.  

Without following the careful procedure or taking cognizance of the hindering factors, you could get false data that are full of bias and distortions and this would inherently affect the result and the purpose for which the research was carried out.

5. Analyze the data collected

Once you’ve been able to gather the necessary data, now is the time to analyze them. Analysis of the data generated makes the data meaningful and suitable for interpretation. And since data interpretation will be done from the ones analyzed, it must be done thoroughly and carefully.

As such, the data needs to be arranged, organized, formatted and cleaned to suit the data analysis technique that will be used. The research techniques to be used depend on the outcome of the data collected and it could range from descriptive and regression analysis to predictive and prescriptive analysis. While some companies do the analysis themselves, many outsource this step to an expert in research analysis.

6. Interpret the result and create the report

Interpretation and presentation of the result taken is the next step. This will be done following the analysis done in step six. The interpretation of the result clearly states what the data generated means and what the result is saying.

It provides insights into what is generated from the research and ultimately guides the recommendations that will be given. This step preferably should be done by an individual who is versed in marketing and business. As such, they should be able to translate the analyzed data, state the findings, provide useful insights and give the necessary recommendations. 

Once the interpretation has been done, then reports can be formulated. The report usually would be in a written form or presented with the use of slides based on the company’s requirements. Importantly, at this stage, you should be able to evaluate if the objective of the study has been achieved, if the research questions have been answered, and if the study has generated meaningful results.

7. Take Action

Lastly, actions should be taken based on the interpretation and recommendations projected. The research process isn't complete without taking the right steps following the study. If research was carried out to determine the best marketing strategy for your company, then adequate steps should be taken towards restructuring the company’s marketing structure following the completion of the study. As such, every other step above must be done properly to make the findings of the study worthwhile and useful.

Importance of Marketing Research

Marketing research is essential for every business and industry. Here are some of the reasons you should frequently carry out one in your organization.

1. Aids decision-making process

Marketing research is there to guide the kind of decision that will be made in the company. Without research, there would be a lot of trial and error which would most times pose more business risk. Even if you feel some business and marketing options could boost your business growth, carrying out our research would help you confirm if these hypotheses and assumptions are true or false. And as such it would aid your decision-making process and also prevent business risks to the minimum.

2. Helps identify other opportunities

With frequent marketing research, you could identify more opportunities within your business. Beyond achieving the research objectives, there could be other business opportunities that might be projected through research. For example, during the course of finding out the best-targeting audience for your business, you could discover some new products within your industry that suit the same audience needs. Apart from that, you could also meet some business partners, discover new marketing strategies and so on during the course of a research project.

3. Relevant in staying competitive

With marketing research, it becomes much more feasible to understand customer's needs. If you're able to research their needs, what they feel about your product and competitors’ own and their dissatisfaction about your offer and that of the competitors and you're willing to provide solutions to them, then you stand a high chance of overcoming competition. By going through reviews, analyzing customers' displeasure through social media and offering a product or service that suits their needs, you will be able to stay competitive and gain more customers.

4. Helps identify potential issues

With frequent and thorough market research, you would be able to recognize the strategies that work for marketing and business in general. By following up with trends and staying ahead in the marketing research process, you would be able to recognize any likely issue. This would generally help the business minimize loss and risk while maximizing profits. Without thorough research and analysis, it becomes quite difficult for businesses to identify or diagnose issues which could be detrimental to the success of a company. 

5. Helps understand and re-strategize business marketing strategies

With marketing research, you would be able to differentiate the marketing strategies that work from those that don't and get to understand several market trends and consumer behavior. By doing this,  you would be able to strategize your marketing structure to include those that will work effectively for the brand.

Conclusion

As a business owner, prioritizing marketing research is vital to your business' success. Whether you are a small, medium or large-scale business, with this guide, you are on your way to achieving your business goals through an effective marketing research process. Do you have any questions about the marketing research process? Kindly contact one of our experts here for help today.