The marketing research process is a six-step process involving the definition of the problem being studied upon, determining what approach to take, formulation of research design, field work entailed, data preparation and analysis, and the generation of reports, how to present these reports, and overall, how the task can be accomplished.
Problem definition involves discussion with the decision makers, interviews with industry experts, analysis of secondary data, and, perhaps, some qualitative research, such as focus groups.
This process is guided by discussions with management and industry experts, case studies and simulations, analysis of secondary data, qualitative research and pragmatic considerations.
Proper selection, training, supervision, and evaluation of staff members helps minimize data-collection errors.
The data from the questionnaires are transcribed or key-punched on to magnetic tapes, or disks or inputted directly into the computer.
In addition, an oral presentation should be made to management using tables, figures, and graphs to enhance clarity and impact.
This data includes information made available by business and government sources, commercial marketing research firms, and computerized databases.