Marketing Research Review of E-Learning Materials - Assignment Example

Marketing Research Review of E-Learning Materials Name of University Submitted by Names: Tutor: Date Table of Content Marketing Research Review of E-Learning Materials 3 Introduction 3 Week 1: What is Market Research? 4 Week 3: 5 Steps in the Marketing Research Process 6 Week 4: How to Write a Market Research Questionnaire 7 Week 5: What is a Questionnaire? 9 Week 6: What is sampling? 11 Conclusion 13 Marketing Research Review of E-Learning Materials Introduction Marketing research is becoming important in today’s business life. Companies, through market research have been finding opportunities to improve their products and services to make them more useful to customers. Obviously, organizations are achieving this aim by answering questions about target audiences and their needs and wants, geographies, market environments, among others. According to Vasquez (2010), the ideas of market research and marketing research were developed in 1920 by Daniel Starch, at the same time advertising had been introduced in the United States. Early 1930s Starch noted his theory that for effective advertising, it was demanding for advertisements to be seen, read, remembered, believed and acted upon. Soon, he would develop a research company that could interview people, asking them about if they read his advertisement publications. Thereafter, many companies offering marketing and market research services began to emerge, improving on Starch’s techniques. Before one starts a business, it is important that he understands the basics of doing a successful market research. This will be important in leading him to learn about his customers, industry and competitors (SBA 2014). The market research will be much instrumental in enabling one to realize services and products that are in demand, and therefore how he can be competitive. Currently, it is lucky that there are numerous ways to collect information from potential customers- online researches to focus groups (Blank 2014). This research paper aims at discussing the process involved in market research by exploring the contents learnt in class. In this regard, it will explain exactly, the meaning of market research in detail. The next step will involve outlining and elaborating on steps within the process of marketing research. Since questionnaires are expected in doing surveys to uncover customer information, the next section will discuss methods of writing a good market research questionnaire. This will also include defining a questionnaire and its importance in market research. The last section of the discussion will involve sampling; there will be definition and discussion of how it can be done to ensure proper data description, analysis and conclusion while uncovering information about potential customers. Week 1: What is Market Research? Market research refers to any organized efforts for gathering information about potential customers or target market. This is one of the major components of a business strategy. Although the term has commonly been interchanged with marketing research, expert practitioners have sought to draw distinctions between them. While market research is specifically concerned with markets, marketing research is specifically concerned with marketing processes involved. Verma (2014) notes that in both cases, there must be data collection, data processing, data analysis, information evaluation and client presentation. Therefore, market research is the process by which firms or persons gather, analyze, and interpret raw data about customers/ target market(s), competitors, products or services about the present and past, and potential consumers to uncover usable information about them. The data will be collected using techniques such as focus group discussion, secondary sources, and interviews among others. The next major step will involve analyzing the data by using analysis techniques such as quantitative or qualitative methodologies. After providing the data in more refined ways, it could then be used for interpretation to find solutions to the asked questions at the beginning of the research (Verma, 2012). Questions that Market Research Can Answer Verma (2012) notes that for a market research to uncover the needs of various customers for proper improvement of the product, it has to answer questions that do with target audience, their needs and wants, geographies of their markets, distribution channels, reasons for buying the product, competitors, market environment, ways to make products attractive, government rules and regulations and the best entry strategy. In this regard, the research firm/ person should know the target audiences, what they need and want, and their geographies and sales potentials. Moreover, asking for the best distribution channel, reasons why the customers buy the products or services are also important. Furthermore, the company should ask questions that scan the environment to realize its market environment, potential competitors, entry strategy and ways to make its products to stand out as most attractive. Nonetheless asking to realize the government’s rules and regulations in particular market areas is also much important. Verma (2014) adds that there should be question that enquires about people’s actual lives and why they are not buying the company’s products, who can be interested in buying its products, where, when, how, and why customers can consume its products, ideal image of the brand and other aspects like packaging, name, features, pricing, advertising among others. Importantly, there should be questions that touch on improvements that should be made, single most benefit of the brand, the price to sell, the best communication channel to reach many people, new related brands that could be offered to the people, the vision of the brand and the best roadmap to get there. Situations in Which Market Research Can Be Much Important When a foreign manufacturer wants to know whether there is market in foreign countries or not, say for electronic products that operate on alternative energy system in India, he will have to do a market research to find out if they operate on such energy system. If the firm wants to introduce a product that it thinks to be superior to the existing products, it can do a market research to tell whether consumers think so or not. Moreover, the product testing research will involve testing if the targeted products fairs well against those of its competitors in the market. Lastly, in the illustration is testing the volume that customers can actually consume. If one is launching a certain product, it will be important if research is done so that he can realize the demand level that should be expected from a certain market (Verma, 2014). Week 3: 5 Steps In the Marketing Research Process Professor Tim Richardson has noted five major steps to conduct a successful market research: defining the problem, analyzing the situation, getting problem specific data, interpreting the data and developing the conclusion. Defining the problem involves finding out the symptoms of the problem, what they mean to the business, and drawing the research objectives. This stage is the most important and therefore one should set aside enough time to think about. One should start by questions that concern problems that are to be solved/ issues that are to be addressed, what he has to learn and how he will use the information that he would have obtained from the research (Richardson 2010). The next stage, which involves analyzing the situation, has to do with breaking down the problem into different components, noting down their relationships. This will be important in that the researcher will know exactly particular people who can answer certain questions at their best levels. One can also get to realize the kind of data he should expect from various groups of clients. Great research methods in marketing research include focus-group, observational, survey, ethnography, behavioral and experimental. Secondary data can come from secondary sources that include government publications, internal sources, periodicals and books, on-line associations, commercial data, online business information among others (Richardson 2010). The next stage will be collecting information, which will involve scientific collection of information from customers of targeted markets. Since it has been noticed from experience that many people may be reluctant to answer some sensitive questions, it is important that questions are constructed neutrally so that all people can be interested to answer. The data collection should not be biased, and all variables should be examined in their right contexts, using multiple methods, if necessary (Richardson 2010). Interpreting data will involve manipulating the data collected by various research tools to discover new information about the customers under the analysis; it is understanding information and saying what it means within particular contexts. When the analysis is done correctly, the research information will be useful in developing the business strategy, determining market segment, improving the product or service and operations and motivating employees. Lastly, there should be a conclusion that will involve summarizing the outcomes of the study, developing the answers to the research questions and making decisions as directions for the firm to follow (Richardson 2010). Week 4: How to Write a Market Research Questionnaire Keeping it simple- In this case, the marketer should use short clearly worded questions to be concise. While avoiding loaded sentences, the questions should be interesting for one to answer. It is important to structure the questionnaire so that some questions are located at the beginning while others at the end to enhance smooth flow of contexts (Aitken 2010). Keeping it short- The question should be short and to the point; if the question is too long respondents can answer it in their own ways. The length of surveys and questions are increased, there will be decreased chance of the researcher to receive completed responses (Aitken 2010). Use the language that is most convenient with the respondents- In this regard, one is supposed to use words or the language that respondents understand and use. Individuals should be aware of the language level of the respondents so that data provided can be clean and response rate high. Therefore as a measure to test the complexity of the questionnaire in language, it is important that one attempts it with a small group before actual administration (Aitken 2010). Think about proper ordering of the questions- In this case, one should be very careful about how he orders questions. All questions should be placed in their right contexts. In general most survey experts recommend the funnel approach whereby general questions begin as warm up to specific questions before ending with more general and easy ones to answer (Aitken 2010). Avoid Subjective Terms- One should avoid using terms that may give different interpretation according to individual respondents. One is supposed to build questions that can be understood clearly, so that he can get clearly what he wants to know. For instance using terms that are not specific for one to know in frequency may be quite confusing (Aitken 2010). One can include middle response options if some respondents are reflected by them- In this regard, one should provide necessary responses that will suite the respondents correctly. Respondents may not want to answer by restricting themselves to the options provided and hence middle option can be provided (Aitken 2010). Avoid Double Negatives- double negative questions are very confusing and therefore they should be avoided (Aitken 2010). Make the survey Scale logical- the weights of labels or numbers for certain responses should be logical, that is, from high to low. Notably, if one uses unbalanced scales he may find situations that are biased (Aitken 2010). Do not forget zero!!- It is important that one does not forget about zero because most people think that the middle point of 1 and 10 is five, ending up to choose it. When zero is put among the options, it will prompt the respondents to think further rather than relying on the “average” as five (Aitken 2010). Let the personal questions be the last to be answered- Questions that are sensitive such as age, ethnicity, income, gender et cetra should be placed at the end so that respondent do not get worried about being identified (Aitken 2010). Additionally for one to be much successful in his questionnaire, Hurlbert says that one has to understand who his customers are so that to set up questions that are democratic in his questionnaire. They should include age, gender, ethnicity, income/ revenues from business, products they buy. Moreover, it should take into account mega trends such as economic changes, kind of market among others. This will make the firm send them appropriate questionnaires, and the customers will appreciate the fact that the firm really understands them (Hurlbert and Koenigs 2009). Week 5: What is a Questionnaire? According to Schulz, a Questionnaire is a set of standardized questions for gathering information from a group of individuals. It is important in making comments or generalizing about a targeted group. There are two main types of research questionnaires: descriptive questionnaire and analytical questionnaire. The descriptive type of questionnaire is designed for one to find out the extent of a certain topic of research/ issue within a population of interest. Descriptive questionnaires typically ask about how many people and how they engage in a certain issues, and therefore it is important that the sample is representative for proper description of a population regarding certain issues (Schulz 2012). Analytical questionnaires are used to explore and explain the associations/ relationships between certain concepts. It is commonly used in theory building and theory testing research, and obviously the size to samples are important for a proper analysis. Some researches may be both descriptive and analytical, which implies that one should consider having samples that are valid in representation and size (Schulz 2012). Questionnaire Administration Self-administered- In this case participants will be required to fill questionnaires without the aid of a researcher. The traditional method for this is the use of mail. Although it can be expensive for large samples, it can be successful since it can be personalized. To encourage people to respond, one should use paid up envelopes. Other types of self-administered questionnaires are hand-outs and internet questionnaires (Schulz 2012). Interview Type Situation- They include telephone interviews and face-to-face interviews where the interviewer will be reading out questions as he obtains unlimited responses from the respondents (Schulz 2012). Stages in Designing of the Questionnaire Identify the type of information to be collected- questionnaires will have different perspectives according to their disciplines. Generally, they will ask people about their attributes, behaviors and experience, knowledge, attitudes and opinions (Schulz 2012). Consider the likely Types of Data In this regard one will consider the category of data as nominal, ordinal data, or continuous (Schulz 2012). Consider Types of Responses Questions can be open-ended or close-ended. Those that are open-ended require open responses and richness in expression. They are good to explore topics in depth or seek more questions. For open ended questions, they can be difficult but easy to analyze. They are also easy to answer and to code and therefore many questions can be answered with small time. Dichotomous questions can have two possible answers, and therefore, they are used to collect category level data. Multiple choice data have choices for respondent to choose. Inventory questions ask participants to rank the data according to their preferences. More items should be avoided as respondents may be unable to rank them. Last are Likert scales which seek to get the level of agreement or disagreement regarding certain statements (Schulz 2012). Design and Layout The design and layout of each questionnaire is very important for people to understand and respond to questions easily. In this regard, one should ensure this by doing the following: Write clear instructions Write transitional statements within segments or changes in subjects Make meaningful sequence Make the questionnaire interesting, in this regard; early questions should be important, as people become fatigued at the end of the questionnaire. Every questionnaire therefore should be well designed as the quality responses will depend on the quality of the questionnaire (Schulz 2012). Week 6: What is sampling? Sampling refers to selecting subsets of individuals within statistical populations as means to estimating characteristics of the entire population. Sampling is important in that the population can be too large for one to take all, too difficult or dispersed to contact and it is a quick method to get results quickly. The simplest sampling method in survey is the use of snap shorts, which can enable one to characterize the population quickly. The key to a successful sample is its representativeness (Gibbs 2014). Sampling Techniques In order to not to jeopardize the representativeness of a sample, random techniques are used (Gibbs 2014). How Big Can is A Sample? When one wants to take a sample from a given population, he should ensure that it is less than 10% of the whole population. It should be however enough to produce a sampling error that is acceptable. Importantly, it should be small enough to use the available time and resources conveniently. Lastly, it should be big enough to give acceptable/ reasonable subsets (Gibbs 2014). Types of Sampling Probability- In this case the researcher can make statistical inferences for each member to be known and included by equal chance/ probability (Gibbs 2014). Non-probability- They involve human judgments, as they do not select by random methods. Although they may be representative, chances of an item being included is not known. It is important that one puts a reasonable sampling frame in probability sampling. This will be instrumental in avoiding problems such as excluding some categories, incurring inaccuracies, putting wrong units and lacking vital information and means of contact for a population. Types of Probability Sampling They include simple random, system or quasi-random, stratified, multistage and cluster sampling. In simple random sampling, every member has an equal opportunity of being deployed and it is sometimes called epsem design (equal probability design). Systematic or quasi-random sampling is becoming convenient with large samples as compared to the random simple one. It starts form a random point and picks an item after rth number. Stratified sampling is used to reduce sampling error so that the likelihood of a representative sampling can be increased. The population is therefore divided into various strata and each stratum represented by a certain number of members. However, one should note that disproportionate stratification will increase the likelihood of selecting more items from some strata and therefore it should be adjusted in analysis. Multi-stage sampling will decrease costs of sampling but increase sampling error. Sampling is done with probability proportional to the sample size. Cluster sampling involves classifying the population by geography, age, and time periods among others. For instance, when one is doing a survey on households within urban areas, he might use city blocks as clusters, and then go on to interview every household within its city block (Gibbs 2014). Conclusion Marketing research and market research which began in 1920s have become widely incorporated in strategic management of most business firms in the world. They have enabled firms to uncover the needs of various customers for proper improvement of their product to generate more revenues, as they satisfy them. However, a good market research will require a questionnaire as a tool to explore customers’ perception regarding what it offers. Following the steps provided above, it is expected that one will be able to come up with a questionnaire that records high response rate. A part from the questionnaire, sampling is also very important in that it is a proportion that reflects the population that will give relevant business information to the business. List of References Aitken, G 2010, December 6, 10 Step Guide to Questionnaire Design by RCU? [video file], viewed 21 September 2014 Blank, S 2014, How to Do Market Research, Inc, viewed 21 September 2014 Gibbs, G R 2014, October 24, Sampling. Part 2 of 2 on Surveys and Sampling [video file], viewed 21 September 2014 Hurlbert, J and Koenigs M 2009, October 29, How to Write a Market Research Questionnaire [video file], viewed 21 September 2014 < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPP5s7xqekk> Richardson, T 2010, Jan 20, 5 Steps in the Marketing Research Process [video file], viewed 21 September 2014 SBA, US 2014, Understand Your Market, SBA. Gov, viewed 21 September 2014 Schulz, J 2012, August 14, What is a Questionnaire? [video file], viewed 21 September 2014 Vasquez, J 2014, The History of Marketing Research, Market Research World.Net, viewed 21 September 2014 Verma, AK 2014, What is Market Research?, Market Research, viewed 21 September 2014 Verma, A K 2012 October 15, What is Market Research? An Informative Presentation [video file], viewed 21 September 2014 Read More