Managers have different philosophies when it comes to marketing a product or service. The so-called product orientation (“we make and sell product X”), the sales orientation (“we must set high sales quotas and sell, sell, sell”), and the marketing concept, which is also called customer orientation or market-driven. According to Kotler (2003), “the marketing concept is a business philosophy that holds that the key to achieving organizational goals consists of the company being more effective than competitors in creating, delivering, and communicating customer value to its chosen target markets.” The key is that this philosophy puts the consumer first, and many business leaders have recognized this as the “right” philosophy.

To develop the “right” marketing strategy (which is another word for planning), companies need to select a segment of the market as the company’s target market and design the proper marketing mix (product, price, place, promotion) to meet the wants and needs of the consumers within the target market. However, to make the right decisions, managers must have objective and accurate information. In other words, they need to understand the wants and needs of the consumers, i.e. generate consumer insights. These information, or consumer insights, are generated through marketing research, which “is the process of designing, gathering, analyzing, and reporting information that may be used to solve a specific marketing problem.” (Burns/Veek/Bush 2017)

In this course, students will understand the uses of marketing research and learn how to design the process from defining the problem and establishing research objectives to analyzing and interpreting data and information about the needs, wants, preferences, and behavior of consumers.

• Define marketing research and the major types of research design
• Recognize the benefits of adopting qualitative vs. quantitative marketing research and primary vs. secondary data
• Design and execute a marketing research project, including defining the problem, establishing research objectives, determining research design and methods of assessing data, designing data collection, and analyzing data
• Write a final marketing research report
• Improve both interpersonal skills and responsibility as a team member by agreeing on individual deadlines, sharing work equally within the group, and cooperating respectfully
• Develop stronger people skills through data collection and interaction with both student and non-student respondents
• Conduct statistical analyses of data with statistical software
• Clearly and unambiguously communicate information, ideas, problems, solutions and conclusions to clients