Professional Studies for Screen-Based Media
Foundation Degree South West
 
 
 
   
 
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Marketing Research
     

Definitions

   

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.