From Alert: Marketing Research Association
January, 2000

The Marketing Research Process — Part I

by Dr. David Gourley and Ed Bergo

INTRODUCTION

The authors hope the title will not fool you into thinking this is going to be a text book type article but rather it is intended to present various marketing research designs in a logical sequence. Further, the article will, in a sense, be from the client perspective rather than from a researcher's viewpoint in that it follows a typical succession of marketing research needs most often required to deal with a marketing problem or opportunity. And, by the way, we will not be presenting any new or startling information however we will be organizing known procedures and processes in, hopefully, a different yet more helpful manner.

BACKGROUND

Before we discuss the research process and the types of research designs we would be remiss if we did not discuss two issues.

First, to help you achieve the above we will present a flow chart/diagram familiar to many, especially teachers of marketing research. It contains terms used by marketers in their everyday dealings with all the diverse publics in the various environments in which they market their products and services. That is to say, we will be introducing some terms that researchers may not use in their handling requests for marketing research. Most of the terms are words we are all familiar with but don't usually associate with marketing research.

The flowchart/diagram that we will present has been developed with the intent being to provide the marketer with the logical flow of research needs and concurrently the types of research designs that would normally be used to obtain the information at a given point in the research process. It is intended to be the ideal rather than what often occurs in normal request situation between research clients and providers. It also is constructed from the perspective of the types of information that should be obtained from determining the problem or opportunity definition all the way to the overseeing of the marketing results of the strategy or tactic implemented. The authors do not lay claim to the creation of this flowchart but unashamedly present it as a great model for presenting and discussing various research designs.

Second, to warn you that it is paramount that the both the client and researcher be aware of the reason a research project is being considered and or requested. To accomplish this one critical step prior to doing a research project is needed. This is often referred to as the "problem —definition stage. An old adage says, " A problem well defined is half solved" and nothing could be truer than in the case of problem formulation as a first step in the marketing research process.

On the one hand, this stage often ends with the client determining that research is not needed. That is, in the process of defining the problem for which research seems to be needed, it is concluded that one of two things is true. The research will not reduce the uncertainty associated with the decision that needs to be made or the cost to reduce the uncertainty exceeds the benefits of reduction.

On the other hand, a joint process of the client and the researcher working together to define the problem can "provide guidance for the efficient and effective design of a marketing research study." This may not be as easy a task as it sounds. This can be for one or more reasons. It may be because the client is simply unwilling to involve the researcher, the client may have a hidden agenda, the client would rather operate on gut-feel or the client is worried about providing information, which might be deemed confidential or proprietary to the firm or organization. If these barriers are overcome and the client is open to a free-flowing dialog with the researcher the result in a much clearer problem definition and more relevant-useful research results.

In order to understand this stage of the marketing research process, it is helpful to have some appreciation of how problems and opportunities arise. As William R. O'dell says "there seem to be three fundamental sources for marketing problems or opportunities and, consequently, research problems: (1) unanticipated change, (2) planned change, and (3) serendipity in the form of new ideas.

Regardless of how the problems or opportunities arise, most of them will require additional information to resolution. Gil Churchill comments that marketing researchers must avoid simply responding to clients perceived needs. To do so would be like a doctor's letting a patient perform his or her own diagnosis and prescribe the treatment or medication needed.

Instead, the researcher must work with the client much like a doctor works with a patient: both need to communicate openly in translating symptoms into underlying casual factors.

This leads us to the initial research design in a stream of designs. And least we forget; the process is never ending. That is, the research process really has no beginning or end but is, in most situations' circular in nature, as you will see.

RESEARCH DESIGNS

So now let's take a look at the flowchart/diagram itself. The first thing you will notice is that it starts "in the beginning" so to speak with exploratory research. That is, to determine what, internally or externally to the firm or organization, may be a potential or actual opportunity or threat. This may be something as simple as a new invention or product/service change that may or may not be worth implementing in the marketplace. Or it may be something as complex as anticipated federal regulation of some sort that may or may not impact on a firm's ability to compete or limit the extent of its capability to expand or prolong its market share for a current product. The key words are "may or may not". Exploratory research is done to determine the if there is any potential or likelihood associated with the potential or actual occurrence of a marketing activity of the firm or a change in one or more of its internal or external environments.

A point should be made here that the use of formal marketing research might or might not be made by an organization at all phase of the process. And further, if it is made, it may occur internally, externally or both depending on a number of factors. This is to say that as a research provider, one may wonder why they are being asked to provide conclusive research about a change in pricing of a service when it may appear there is no reason for such a change. The reality may be that the client has performed exploratory research itself, used some other provider or really needs to do some before jumping in to requesting conclusive research. In this sense the flow chart really assists the provider in asking the right questions to determine if the client should be at this stage. Oh yes, we will be using the terms: phases, stages, or even types interchangeable but with the same intent of indicating where along the flow chart the research request or efforts appears to be at a given point in time.

The three categories of research designs as shown in the diagram need a bit explanation, at this point, in so far as indicating that under the research design called conclusive there are two sub headings. The reason for is that the two types of designs under ‘conclusive' differ greatly in some very key aspects and therefore need to be approached in quite differently. As you will see in the next three parts of this article the ‘four designs' have several similarities and some differences and perhaps the greatest will be between the ‘descriptive' and the ‘experimental' designs.

Before we look at one the major research designs, the authors would like to stress again that the approach to the marketing research process as we are and will be addressing it is not intended to be a cookbook on how to do marketing research. Rather it will be it as a way of thinking about marketing research, the roles of the client and researcher, and uses, approaches and common techniques associated with each of the designs. In fact this is the manner in which each of the three major designs will be approached by the authors in the remainder of this article will not be to cover every point the in diagram but rather us it as a format or launching platform for a discussion of research designs.

More importantly we will stress the need to try to look at marketing research as a potential asset to a firm which marketing researchers have to provide to assist decision makers make more informed decisions.

Performance Monitoring Research

Now that we have lead you to believe that we will start with part or Exploratory Research we will instead begin with Performance Monitoring Research. As you look at diagram 1 one might conclude that the starting point of a discussion of types of research designs would begin with Exploratory. However the authors have chosen to start our analysis of research designs with Performance Monitoring Research. The reason for this tactic is that most companies who perform research or have it performed for them are on-going organizations rather than start-up companies. This means they should have information at hand with which to work. Even the smallest firms with any type of filing system or set of records have a place to start some basic research.

A point needs to be made here about the scope of marketing research in that the sources of data or information that may be collected or used could come from other areas of the company than just marketing. In fact, marketing researchers may at times appear to step on the toes of other departments or areas of a company in that they may use data or information that has been generated by and primarily used by for example production, distribution or accounting. Therefore, as we look at Performance Monitoring Research Designs, be aware that marketing departments or marketers may not have generated much of the data or information used. One other point needs to be made. That is that much of the data or information needed and/or used in Performance Monitoring Research could be thought of as secondary data as opposed to primary data. The reason being that the data or information have been generated for some purpose other than for helping to solve the problem at hand. Additionally, when we use the words "marketing researcher(s)" please view in its broadest context as anyone from a marketing clerical person to a marketing research professional to an outside marketing research firm depending on the context in which it is used.

To start, lets look at some of the typical measures of performance. While the list is long and varied by type of firm and its size, its product(s), competitor(s), the geographical area of operations, etc. some of the measures most frequently used are sales, revenue, costs, and profit.

However, a number of underlying factors or measures are equally relevant such as market share, market position, stage of the product-life-cycle for the firms product(s) or service(s), levels of customer satisfaction and/or loyalty.

For all of these measures to be really relevant there needs to be some benchmark or data base to which the measures of performance can be compared. To condense this discussion lets assume that the firm has such baseline information on some or all of the above mentioned factors or measures available or can obtain it fairly easily internally or externally. This in turn often means that other parts of the organization must be willing to provide the data/information in a timely manner and in a format that is both compatible and usable for comparison purposes. We mention this because it is not always the case. That is to say, marketers' requests for information sometimes fall upon ‘deaf ears' by other parts of the firm. The reverse can also be the case and so it is important to establish a good two-way channel of communications with the various other function or areas of the organization. Even in the computer network era there can be barriers to obtaining needed data/information.

A second part of performance monitoring research is that of establishing expectations or goals for performance. Some of these will be quantitative and others qualitative in nature. Most of the information gathered or obtained is of little value unless it can be measured against goals or expectations. The greater the degree of specification of these goals or expectations the more likely they will be followed and some action taken if there are significant variations detected. While this aspect may seem to be beyond that of the researcher, the authors have found this need not be the case and should not be the case. Both the goals/expectations and degree of variation that is considered to be significant should have research input so that appropriate measurements of the outcomes of decisions or actions/reactions by customers, competitors or other elements in the environment are obtained.

Because Performance Monitoring Research is so diverse the approaches used will be varied as well. Secondary data will provide information needed for much of the measures while other monitoring will require ongoing primary data collection. On the one hand, industry trends for example can often be purchased from firms that specialize in tracking various industries and then "package" and sell that information. On the other hand, customer reaction to a specific price change for a product or service will normally require primary data collection either by the firm or by an outside research organization and in some situations continual monitoring of customers or competitor through primary data collection may be necessary.

This discussion as mentioned earlier is not intended to answer all the questions about research designs but rather introduce the reader to the major designs, their uses, approaches and some of the common techniques. In part two of this article the authors will address exploratory and conclusive designs. In addition they will present a single example of a major firm that discovered a significant negative deviation from expectations for one of their market leading products and used all three designs in sequence to deal with correcting ‘their problem' and surpassing their expectations for this particular product in their total line of products.

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