What are the Different Types of Marketing Research?

With ever-increasing brands, companies, and products, it has become competitive and challenging for every owner to survive and understand their consumer’s needs. Companies must allocate their time and resources effectively for sustainable production. Hence it is necessary for entrepreneurs, owners, marketing professionals and students to know the correct type of marketing research to apply for each situation. This blog shall take you through the basic types of marketing research for running a successful company.

In basic terms- The three Cs of the Marketing Research domain are the company, its customer, and the competition.

Types of Marketing Research

The various types of Research methodologies are practiced in every discipline. Let’s begin with the two broad types of Marketing research:

Applied Research

This type of research focuses on a particular issue or set of problems. Applied research is conducted to yield empirical evidence. (For example, two fast-food giants could use a blind test on consumers to know what they liked/disliked about a new item and use the information to improve their product or for advertising strategies)

Fundamental Research

Companies often need to understand certain aspects of their brands to explore what is missing or unknown. The theoretical fundamental research is executed for the improvement of the company and explores different ways to expand their reach. It is solely done for the company’s betterment to find details that might be useful later. (For Example, An educational institute tries to find out how to enhance student’s concentration/retention to improve the quality of teaching)

Also Read: Types of Business Research

Steps Involved in Marketing Research

By understanding various factors that affect the brand such as the image of the item, product usage, problems/availability of the product, consumer requirements, etc the following types of marketing research can be functional. It is crucial for firms to use the correct type of research and apply it to gain constructive results. 

Primary Research

The primary research is a combination of qualitative and quantitative data collected by companies. In this research process, the researcher is directly involved in gathering first-hand relevant data for the company, instead of using the existing information available. This makes the collected details more tailored and authentic for the specific company. 

• Surveys: All of us must have inattentively filled a survey at a restaurant or a supermarket, without giving a second thought that the information we filled is used to evaluate our requirements. Surveys are a method of data collection that consists of standardized open-ended and closed-ended questions. It is important for brands to address their target population and ask the right questions. (For example, the target audience for a geriatric product company won’t be teenagers or adults. A company that plans to launch a new video game will survey the adolescents and the youngsters for what they like/want in the graphics, set-up, etc.)
• The research team needs to be aware of the type (Customer feedback, Prices, sales, new product concept, etc.), the correct procedure, and analysis methods for conducting a successful survey. 
• Interviews: Another type of primary research is the interview method to get more personalized feedback or answer from the customers. This includes face-to-face interviews or a quick telephonic interview with open-ended questions. The questions in the interview can be structured or unstructured depending on the design of the interview. This method utilizes cost and time but is useful and easier for conducting on a specific target of 75-80 people to discuss important details about the product.
• Ethnographic Research: This is an important type of research method which focuses on the consumer’s lifestyles, trends, attitudes, cultures, etc. It is important for companies to keep up with these factors for effective sales and build new concepts. This study is bent towards the observation of customers in their natural environment. The observation is then followed by a few questions on ‘focus groups’ to understand how the product can be improved and gain customer’s feedback and attitudes towards it.  

Must Read: What is Qualitative Research?

Secondary Research

Secondary research is a useful and cost-effective method for research. It involves an indirect analysis of data or information that is already available. Being easily accessible to a vast set of data, it becomes important to find the correct information and use the right procedure. Researchers must also make sure to check the authenticity and validity of the source they are using. The following are the secondary types of marketing research: 

• Public/government sources: This type of secondary research involves the use of public sources like libraries, online data, and meta-analysis of other reports. Researchers can also use government sources such as census data, archival records, demographic records, etc. These details can give companies an insight into the various ethnicities in the country, region-specific population and gender ratio, payroll, and other business trends. This will help them strategize constructive business plans based on each detail. 
• Educational institutions: Another great source of secondary data, these educational institutes help businesses understand and predict certain patterns based on the information collected. The number of students passing from a particular stream, research done on the institutions, etc. are extremely crucial information that can be used. 
• Competitor Intelligence: Exactly what the name suggests, this type of secondary data helps you understand what is the competition about. It includes reviewing the competitor’s products, their advertisements, website, sales, social media, etc. and accordingly analyzing where you stand in these sectors. It helps you look at your product through the lens of a customer and identify your strengths and weaknesses. 

Research Design

To further elaborate on the types of marketing research and understand each step in the analysis, it is important to know the design of your research. Mentioned below are the main types of design useful for the execution of your report.

• Exploratory Market Research
• Descriptive Market Research
• Causal Market Research
• Predictive Market Research

To know more, read our exclusive blog on types of research design!

FAQs

Hence, we hope that this extensive blog helped you understand the various types of marketing research. If used carefully and wisely, they are sure to give any company an optimal boost. Stay tuned with Leverage Edu for such awesome content!