THE 5 STEP MARKETING RESEARCH PROCESS
Did you know that since market research can seem expensive it is one of the first things companies cut from their marketing budget? Failure to understand your business arena through market research is sure way to kill your business but it doesn’t have to be expensive if you do it right and know what process to follow.
Below is a five step marketing research process with helpful tips to get you through each stage:
1 • DEFINE THE PROBLEM
Before beginning your marketing research, you need to decide what the problem is you’re trying to figure out. In this first phase of the process, you need to establish your research objectives. Developing questions that will help you clearly define your problem is very beneficial during this phase.
2 • DEVELOP RESEARCH PLAN
Once you know what the problem is you’re addressing, it’s time to develop and design the research plan. There are many methods you can incorporate into your plan.
3 • COLLECT RELEVANT DATA
Once you start to collect your data, make sure it’s valid and unbiased. Use a mixture of the methods mentioned above to get relevant data from all angles. The ideal type of information to gather would be analytical/scientific as well as emotional data that you couldn’t get from looking at a graph.
4 • ANALYSE DATA, REPORT FINDINGS
Once you’ve gathered information, it’s time to interpret the data. When doing this, it’s important to look for trends as opposed to specific pieces of information. As you’re analyzing your data, don’t try to find patterns based off your previous assumptions prior to collecting the data. It’s OK if your hypothesis is wrong. That’s why you do the testing and don’t go with assumptions.
5 • TAKE ACTION
Ta-da! Your research is complete. It’s time to present your findings and take action. Start developing marketing campaigns. Put your findings to the test and get going! The biggest takeaway here is that although this round of research is complete, it’s not over.
Our services in detail
Desk Research
An important task where you gather all the relevant knowledge about your brands and markets. We start by scoping out our information needs, typically covering:
Market size and trends
Brands, manufacturers, market sectors and shares
Retail
Innovation and trends
Consumer behaviour
Consumer attitudes and needs
Consumer demographics
Often you may wish to expand your knowledge with some selected interviews among key people. This will colour the data and it is amazing that there is rarely a need to conduct many interviews.
At the end you will receive a report comprising of an executive summary, recommendations for next steps and a compendium containing all the relevant facts and figures.
Quantitative Research
The industry has changed fundamentally in recent years with a shift to the internet away from face to face or telephone. Internet based surveys have distinct benefits such as speed and cost.
But there is still an important place for using the traditional methods:
Street Interviewing remains the best way of speaking to people about their locality. This could be about shopping, a restaurant or bar or a tourist attraction
Telephone interviewing remains important for B2B samples
Postal/ self completion still gets good response rates
Door to door is still used if you are after a randomly selected sample
Qualitative Research
If you ask us to conduct qualitative work we usually team up with Dr Chris Wilson, who we have worked with for over 20 years. Chris’s PhD is in psychology from the London School of Economics.
Working in parallel brings the academic rigour and a wealth of experience to your problems.
Our qualitative work will comprise of either, or both, focus groups or individual interviews.
Semiotics
Semiotics is an investigation into how meaning is created and how it is communicated. Its origins lie in the academic study of how signs and symbols (visual and linguistic) create meaning. It is a way of seeing the world, and of understanding how the landscape and culture in which we live has a massive impact on all of us unconsciously. To explain further, here is a short case study:
We were doing some work on new sports logos and the respondents were unanimous in totally rubbishing them. The executive who was in charge of the branding exercise was in attendance at each group. We foresaw that his disappointment would be diverted to us. My friend, who was conducting the groups, had previously lectured semiotics at Goldsmiths. He collected approximately 100 examples of sports logos from UK and the US, and from this he established a set of conventions, which included:
- They all used primary colours
- Names were usually in lower case
- Names were literal (eg speedo)
- The lettering and logo all conveyed movement
The proposed designs used secondary colours, lacked movement and the names were meaningless (eg Zingo). They had failed on all of the above conventions.
At the presentation we went through the results from the groups followed by the semiotics. At the end the marketing director summed up “Not only have the design agency done a poor job but they hadn’t done their homework either“.
What the semiotics did was establish the conventions of the market. The designers having ignored these conventions produced logos and brand names that the respondents did not understand nor like. In addition semiotics made us heroes in the eyes of the client. Since then we have used to evaluate websites, pack designs and brochures, and it always reveals the unexpected.
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