10.6 Chapter Summary
Exercises
- Develop survey question examples for each of the types of survey questions outlined in this section.
- Evaluate the seven steps to conducting research. What do you think might happen if one of these steps is missed or poorly handled? Give an example.
- How does the Internet change the role of the researcher when it comes to market research?
- Brainstorm incentive options and evaluate value for the interviewee.
- Explain why it’s important to carefully define the problem or opportunity a marketing research study is designed to investigate.
- Describe the different types of problems that can occur when marketing research professionals develop questions for surveys.
- How does a probability sample differ from a nonprobability sample?
- What makes a marketing research study valid? What makes a marketing research study reliable?
- What sections should be included in a marketing research report? What is each section designed to do?
Key Terms
Case Study: Looks at how another company solved the problem that’s being researched.
Causal Research Design: Examines cause-and-effect relationships.
Closed-Ended Questions: Questions that limit a respondent’s answers.
Convenience Sample: Is one type of nonprobability sample. It is a sample a researcher draws because it’s readily available and convenient to do so.
Depth Interview: Engaging in detailed, one-on-one, question-and-answer sessions with potential buyers—is an exploratory research technique.
Descriptive Research Design: Involves gathering hard numbers, often via surveys, to describe or measure a phenomenon so as to answer the questions of who, what, where, when, and how.
Double-Barreled Question: Don’t muddy the waters by asking two questions in the same question.
Ethnography: Researchers interview, observe, and often videotape people while they work, live, shop, and play.
Exploratory Research Design: An exploratory research design is useful when you are initially investigating a problem but you haven’t defined it well enough to do an in-depth study of it.
Field Experiment: An experiment conducted in a natural setting such as a store.
Focus Group: Is a group of potential buyers who are brought together to discuss a marketing research topic with one another.
Marketing Information System (MIS): Is a way to manage the vast amount of information firms have on hand—information marketing professionals and managers need to make good decisions.
Marketing Research Aggregator: Is a marketing research company that doesn’t conduct its own research and sell it. Instead, it buys research reports from other marketing research companies and then sells the reports in their entirety or in pieces to other firms.
Mystery Shopper: Someone who is paid to shop at a firm’s establishment or one of its competitors to observe the level of service, cleanliness of the facility, and so forth, and report his or her findings to the firm.
Nonprobability Sample: Any type of sample that’s not drawn in a systematic way.
Online Surveys: a method of quantitative research conducted through the Internet to gather information about a population, offer the advantage of immediate data capture and facilitate swift and straightforward data analysis.
Open-Ended Questions: Questions that ask respondents to elaborate.
Physiological Measurements: Measure people’s involuntary physical responses to marketing stimuli, such as an advertisement.
Population: The universe to reflect the fact that it includes the entire target market, whether it consists of a million people, a hundred thousand, a few hundred, or a dozen.
Primary Data: Is information you collect yourself, using hands-on tools such as interviews or surveys, specifically for the research project you’re conducting.
Primary Research: Involves gathering data for a specific research task. It is based on data that have not been gathered beforehand. Primary research can be either qualitative or quantitative.
Probability Sample: Is one in which each sample would-be participant has a known and equal chance of being selected.
Qualitative Market Research: Involves determining customer motivation through close observation –– typically in a small group or face-to-face encounter.
Qualitative Research: Is any form of research that includes gathering data that is not quantitative, and often involves exploring questions such as why as much as what or how much.
Quantitative Market Research: Refers to the process of collecting large amounts of data through surveys, questionnaires, and polling methods.
Research Objective: It outlines what data you are going to gather and from whom, how and when you will collect the data, and how you will analyze it once it’s been obtained.
Respondent Error: An error that occurs when respondents become desensitized to the research process.
Sample Error: inaccuracy in the results of research that occurs when a population sample is used to explain the behavior of the total population. is a fact of market research.
Sample: Is a subset of potential buyers that are representative of your entire target market.
Sampling Error: Any type of marketing research mistake that results because a sample was utilized.
Sampling Frame: The list from which the sample is drawn.
Scanner-Based Research: Is information collected by scanners at checkout stands in stores.
Secondary Data: Is data that has already been collected by someone else, or data you have already collected for another purpose.
Secondary Research: Involves the synthesis of existing data and literature, utilizing sources like journals, books, and various data repositories.
Syndicated Research: Is primary data that marketing research firms collect on a regular basis and sell to other companies.
Test Market: The place the experiment is conducted or the demographic group of people the experiment is administered to.
