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To maintain the control needed to obtain accurate information, marketers approach marketing research as a process with logical steps: purposes of the research, plan of the research, performance of the research, processing of research data, and preparation of research report. We can call it Five Ps of research process.
The first step in the research process is to determine explicitly why the research is needed and what it is to accomplish.
The statement of the research objectives guides the entire research process. The manager and the researcher should put the statement in writing to be certain that they agree on the purpose and expected results of the research.
The first step is often the most difficult but also the most important one in the marketing research process. Pinpointing and identifying the problem is half the battle.
Marketing researchers spend much time defining the research purpose precisely and writing a formal proposal that describes the research to be done.
Research objective are specific, measurable goals.
Marketing managers must be careful not to define the problem too broadly or too narrowly for the marketing research. If the objectives are too broad, the problem may not be researchable.If they are too narrow, the value of the research results may be seriously lessened.
Managers and researchers should agree on the current situation involving the problem to be researched, the nature of the problem, and the specific question or question the research is designed to investigate.
Effective decision makers develop specific measures of success, which are criteria or standards used in evaluating proposed solutions to the problem.
Assumptions that managers make based on home-country marketing success can turn out to be wrong when applied globally.
When approaching global markets, it is best to have“eyes wide open”.
Research plan is an overall plan for obtaining the information needed to address a research problem or issue.
Plan development involves determining the hypothesis and type of data needed, and deciding which type of research will be most effective.
A hypothesis is an informed guess or assumption about a certain problem or set of circumstances based on previous knowledge or other sources.
The hypotheses that are accepted or rejected become the study's chief conclusions.
Determining data sources means that the researcher has to determine whether it should seek primary or secondary data.
Primary data are collected specifically for the research problem under study.
Secondary data are previously collected data for another purpose.
Researchers usually start by gathering secondary data. They can use the company's internal database, and also can tap into a wide assortment of external information sources.
Secondary information has the advantage of usually being cheaper than primary data, and it also can be obtained more quickly.
Researchers can rarely obtain all the data they need from secondary sources. Even when data can be found, the information might not be very usable. In this case, researchers must also collect primary data.
Research approaches for gathering primary data include qualitative research and quantitative research.
Qualitative research is the analysis and understanding of patterned conduct and social process of society.
Qualitative researches in marketing research always use small numbers of respondents to help researchers to understand the complex patterns of human behavior.
The most popular qualitative research methods include focus group discussions and in-depth interviews.
Focus group discussion is an unstructured, free-flowing discussion with a small group of people.
Focus group discussion involves unstructured or semi-structured discussions between a moderator and a group of interviewees, and often starts with broad topic and focuses on specific issues. The ideal size is 6-10 people.
The weaknesses of the focus group discussion are that interpretation of the results is highly subjective, the quality of the results depends heavily on the skills of the moderator, sample size is usually small, making generalization to wider populations difficult, and there exists the danger that the results might be biased by the presence of research groupies, who enjoy taking part in focus groups and return again and again.
In-depth interviews involve the interviewing of customers individually for perhaps one or two hours about a topic.
The aims of in-depth interviews are broadly similar to those of group discussion but are used when the presence of other people could inhibit honest answers and viewpoints, when discussing an individual's decision-making process, and where the organization of a group is not feasible.
In-depth interviews have big flexibility. One-to-one interviews allow the interviewer to ask questions and collect data on a wide variety of topics.
The success of the research depends on the interviewer's skill.The researcher should record both surface reactions and subconscious motivations of the respondent.
In-depth interviews have the same general limitations as in all qualitative methods due to the small sample size.
Quantitative research involves more systematic procedures designed to obtain and analyze numerical data.
Three common types of quantitative research in marketing are observational research, survey research, and experimental research.
Observational research involves watching people and recording relevant facts and behaviors.
Researchers often observe customer behavior to glean customer insights they cannot obtain by simply asking customers questions.
Marketers not only observe what customers do but also observe what customers are saying.
However, some things simply cannot be observed, such as attitudes, motives, or private behavior.
Long-term or infrequent behavior is also difficult to observe.
Researchers often use observation along with other data collection methods.
Survey research involves the collection of data by means of a questionnaire either by mail, phone, in person, or online.
Surveys are commonly used in marketing research to investigate customer beliefs, attitudes, satisfactions, and many other issues.
The major advantage of survey research is its flexibility, and it can be used to obtain many different kinds of information in many different situations.
Sometimes people are unable to answer survey questions because they cannot remember or have never thought about what they do and why they do it.
People may be unwilling to respond to unknown interviewers or about things they consider private.
Busy people may not take the time, or they might resent the intrusion into their privacy.
Experimental research involves manipulating one variable and examining its impact on other variables.
Experiments are useful for getting a better idea of the causal relationships among variables.
Experimental researches are often difficult to design and administer effectively in natural settings.
Many marketing research experiments are conducted in laboratories or simulated stores to carefully control other variables that could impact results.
The key to successful experimental design is the elimination of other explanations of changes in the dependent variable.
Performance of the research involves preparing for data collection and actually collecting them.
The tasks at this stage depend on the type of research that has been selected and the type of data needed.
In the actual data collection, a cardinal rule is to obtain and record the maximal amount of useful information, subject to the constraints of time, money, and respondent privacy.
Both the objectives and constraints of data collection must be closely monitored.
Processing research data includes the preparation of data for analysis and the actual analysis of them.
Preparations of data include editing and structuring data and coding them for analysis.
The appropriate analysis techniques for collected data depend on the nature of the research question and the design of the research.
A critical part of this stage is interpreting and assessing the research results.
Marketing researchers should always double-check their analysis and avoid overstating the strength of their findings.
Research report is a complete statement of everything done in a research project and includes a write-up of each of the previous stages as well as the strategic recommendations from the research.
Research reports should be clear and unambiguous with respect to what was done and what recommendations are made.
The limitations of the research should be carefully noted.
Researchers should work closely with managers to ensure that the study and its limitations are fully understood.
中外案例对比
Case Study Comparison
零点有数
零点有数原名为零点研究咨询集团，是中国专业研究咨询市场的早期开拓者与当前领导者之一，1992年由袁岳先生创建，为源自中国的国际化数据智能服务机构。旗下包括创新数据开发中心、公共事务数据事业群、商业数据事业群、未来商学院。2016年，公司正式更名为零点有数，重点突出数据化决策战略方向，致力于提供数据智能链服务系统。
零点公司是我国首批获得国家统计局颁发的32个具有涉外调查资格的专业市场研究机构之一，数据收集、挖掘和分析是该公司的重要经营业务。公司的主要调查业务包括市场调查、民意测验、政策性调查和内部管理调查，20多年来，接受海内外企事业单位、政府机构和非政府机构的委托，完成各类定量与定性研究课题，拥有服务于国内外规模企业、初创企业与公共服务机构的多元实践经验，聚焦于产品互联网化与服务互联网化，基于多元数据汇集与挖掘，支持经济、社会、文化与政策决策。
零点集中其在专业调研、策略咨询、背景数据方面的优势，借助透过长期协作关系确立的行业资源协作网，建立了公共事务、金融、IT电信、汽车、房地产、烟草、媒体娱乐、快速消费品八个研究事业部，通过与行业内主力机构建立战略伙伴关系，零点的专业研究部与相当部分的客户建立了频密的信息、经验、业务发展、能力建设的互动关系。零点在相应的领域迅速积累起在人才、信息、技能、研究咨询模型、实战经验方面的资源优势。
网上调查是零点有数的一个优势产品。零点远景网络实验室隶属于零点有数，创建于2011年，致力于为客户提供高品质互动研究的创新体验。零点远景网络实验室独立开发全新线上研究平台E-lab，依托Web2.0及多媒体互动技术，集线上测试、概念开发、产品创新、品牌营销为一体，为客户提供以产品开发、品牌提升为核心的整合互动营销平台。
多客户调查服务系统（Homnibus）也是零点有数的一个传统服务产品。零点每年开设有包括全国城乡居民、大都市市民、农村居民、小镇居民、城乡中学生、大专院校学生、流动人口、商务人士在内的约12轮Homnibus。Homnibus也称为搭车调查，其主要特点是帮助客户用最低的成本获得即时的信息。
零点有数以其卓越的创新能力与前沿洞察能力，开展独创性的中国消费文化群体研究，不断创新引入先进的研究方法，形成独特的创新研究体系，在市场调研领域保持着独特的资源优势。
（资料来源：作者根据相关网站内容整理）
AC Nielsen
ACNielsen Corporation is the world's leading provider of market research, information and analysis to the consumer products and services industries.More than 9, 000 clients in more than 100 countries rely on ACNielsen's dedicated professionals to measure competitive marketplace dynamics, to understand consumer attitudes and behavior, and to develop advanced analytical insights that generate increased sales and profits.
The company was originally founded in 1923 by an engineer, Arthur C. Nielsen. He borrowed $45, 000 to start a business running quality tests and offering buying suggestions on conveyor belts, turbine generators, and other machine-related parts. After that business was nearly bowled over by the Depression, Nielsen shifted to measuring consumer sales. In 1933, Nielsen introduced measurements for drugstore and retail store sales. A year later, similar measurements were introduced for grocery and department store sales. By going beyond conventional consumer questionnaires and having auditors actually survey store shelves and accounting books to determine sales patterns, Nielsen helped pioneer key market research tools—including the concept of market share in 1935.
In 1942, Nielsen began to implement measurement of radio audiences on a national scale. In radio's heyday following World War II, determining radio ratings was a labor-intensive endeavor: listeners would send cards to advertisers, who would actually weigh the mailbags to determine which shows were most popular. Improving upon this technique, Nielsen attached meters to radios in sample households and, eventually, installed cameras that took pictures of the meter readings. The heads of the households then mailed the pictures to the rating company on a regular basis. In the 1950s, the advent of television and the need for ever-quicker rating techniques spurred the development of meter readers that Nielsen attached to telephone lines for‘overnight’TV ratings.
By the mid-1980s, more than $19 billion was spent on national TV advertising; Nielsen metered more than 5, 500 homes and generated approximately$100 million in revenue from that business segment alone. Nielsen Media Research provided television advertisers, advertising agencies, syndicates, cable operators, networks, and stations with TV-rating information to increase the effectiveness of television advertising and programming in the 21st century.
A momentous advancement for Nielsen was the development of scanning technology, which allowed the company to collect accurate and instantaneous data on consumer purchases as they occurred. In 1993, Nielsen became the first in the industry to offer scanning-based information from warehouse clubs with the introduction of the Nielsen Warehouse Club Service.
Capitalizing on new developments in networking, information modeling, and forecasting, Nielsen was able to introduce a wave of new products in the early 1990s. The company's decision-support and software services enabled customers to retrieve data and analyze information via terminals and personal computers installed in their offices. Such information was accessible in a number of ways, including online connection to mainframes or permanent downloading of information into customers' in-house information systems.
(Source: Adapted from http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/59/ACNielsen-Cor poration.html)
Case Implications:
Not all marketing researches require primary data, likewise, not all researches have to be conducted by in-house staff. With the development of marketing research industry, many professional and well-established marketing research companies, such as AC Nielsen and Dataway, entered this field, and they can provide proper and specialized data sources to meet various needs of research. Naturally, companies should consider some constraints such as costs when choosing data sources.