Marketing Research

According to American Marketing Association, “Marketing Research is the function that links the consumer, customer and public to the marketer through information-information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems, generate, refine and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process.”

Marketing Research is systematic problem analysis, model building and fact finding for the purpose of important decision making and control in the marketing of goods and services.

Marketing Research is a well-planned, systematic process which implies that it needs planning at all the stages. It uses scientific method. It is an objective process as it attempts to provide accurate authentic information. Marketing Research is sometimes defined as the application of scientific method in the solution of marketing problems.

Marketing Research plays a very significant role in identifying the needs of customers and meeting them in best possible way. The main task of Marketing Research is systematic gathering and analysis of information.

Advantages of Marketing Research

Marketing research has several advantages. They are:

1. Marketing research is used to measure market potential, characteristics and share of markets for a company.

2. Companies can use marketing research to evaluate new product opportunities and product acceptance and to test existing products relative to the competitor’s products.

3. It helps to make better advertising decisions.

4. It helps to evaluate the effectiveness of marking activities and draws attention to a potential problem.

5. It helps the manufacturer to adjust his productions according to the conditions of demand.

6. It helps marketing of goods in efficient and economical way by eliminating all types of wastage.

7. It helps a dealer to find out the best way of approaching potential buyers.

8. It helps to find out defects in the products and take corrective steps to improve the product.

9. It guides a dealer in planning, advertising and promotion effort.

10. It helps to assess the effectiveness of advertising programmes.

11. It helps in evaluating the relative efficiency of different advertising media.

12. It facilitates to evaluate the selling methods.

13. It helps to minimize the risks of uncertainties.

14. It helps in exploring new markets for its products.

15. It guides a firm in making sales forecasts for products.

16. It helps to explore new uses of existing products.

17. It is quite helpful for a firm to launch a new product.

18. It helps the firm in knowing general conditions prevailing in the market.

19. It helps in determining pricing policies and pricing strategy of competitors.

20. It reveals the causes of consumer resistance, etc.

Limitations of Marketing Research

Following are the main limitations of Marketing Research:

• Marketing Research (MR) is not an exact science though it uses the techniques of science. Thus, the results and conclusions drawn upon by using MR are not very accurate.
• The results of MR are very vague as MR is carried out on consumers, suppliers, intermediaries, etc. who are humans. Humans have a tendency to behave artificially when they know that they are being observed. Thus, the consumers and respondents upon whom the research is carried behave artificially when they are aware that their attitudes, beliefs, views, etc are being observed.
• MR is not a complete solution to any marketing issue as there are many dominant variables between research conclusions and market response.
• MR is not free from bias. The research conclusions cannot be verified. The reproduction of the same project on the same class of respondents give different research results.
• Inappropriate training to researchers can lead to misapprehension of questions to be asked for data collection.
• Many business executives and researchers have ambiguity about the research problem and it’s objectives. They have limited experience of the notion of the decision-making process. This leads to carelessness in research and researchers are not able to do anything real.
• There is less interaction between the MR department and the main research executives. The research department is in segregation. This all makes research ineffective.
• MR faces time constraint. The firms are required to maintain a balance between the requirement for having a broader perspective of customer needs and the need for quick decision making so as to have competitive advantage.
• Huge cost is involved in MR as collection and processing of data can be costly. Many firms do not have the proficiency to carry wide surveys for collecting primary data, and might not also able to hire specialized market experts and research agencies to collect primary data. Thus, in that case, they go for obtaining secondary data that is cheaper to obtain.
• MR is conducted in open marketplace where numerous variables act on research settings.