| The American
Marketing Association defines marketing research as ‘the
function that links an organisation to its market through the
gathering of information that enables a company to identify market
driven opportunities, refine and evaluate marketing actions and
finally, monitor overall marketing performance’.
For Kotler et al (1997), marketing research is ‘the
systematic design, collection and analysis of findings relevant
to a specific marketing situation’.
Key words in this definition are:
- Systematic
- analysis
- relevant
Research should be conducted in an organised and objective fashion
to guarantee that data collected responds to the problem identified.
A researcher not only collects information but is also responsible
for making sense of the data and drawing insightful conclusions
and recommendations. Input provided by research should be timely
and relevant to a company’s marketing objectives. |
