Characteristics of Marketing Research

Marketing research uses the same method, which is used in science. Science can be defined as a discipline using proper research techniques for the purpose of finding general patterns of facts or reality. The goal of science is the extension of certified knowledge. Thus, in marketing though we are concerned with the proper use of knowledge gathering techniques for the purpose of discovering new patterns of fact or reality. Effective marketing research uses the principles of the scientific method namely, careful observation, formulation of hypothesis, prediction and testing.
Why is it important that marketing research be scientific? It is important because marketing research has to deal with certified knowledge and without certified knowledge good management decisions cannot be made. What this means is that the marketing researcher must endeavour to uncover the truth. Since management is primarily interested in making marketing decisions based on the accurate and unbiased data, it is clear that the marketing researcher must follow scientific procedure in order for data to be collected and analysed properly.

    The following are the characteristics of marketing research :

1. Marketing research is based on a fact. Life science marketing research is factual science starts by establishing facts and seeks to describe and explain them. Established fact are imperial data obtained with the aid of theories and in turn helps clarify theories. The same thing is done in the marketing research. For example, marketing researchers use theories of buyer or consumer behaviour to help learn about how buyers respond to point-of-purchase promotional techniques. In the process of doing this and learning about specific behaviour, researchers can often gain new insights which modify the original theory and make it still more useful the next time it is employed.

2. Marketing research goes beyond facts. Going beyond fact means not only the description of them, but also providing explanations. Marketing research as do not restrict themselves to fats which are easily observed and already in existence. They may want to create new facts such as new attitudes towards a particular product through the use of mass media.

3. Marketing research is analytic. In examining any marketing situation, the market researcher tries to understand the various components of that situation. For instance the marketing researcher tries to decompose the buying decision process into its basic parts in order to determine the things which account for the way the process functions. He examines the interrelationships among the components parts of the buyer decision process. In examining how a bayern makes decision to acquire a product, the researcher considers how the interest stage influences the evaluation stage. The nature of the original interest may influence how the potential buyer undertakes his evaluation of the product. If his original interest is one of the curiosity, he may evaluate the information he obtains about the product in a relatively objective way. On the contrary, if his initial interest is characterized by the spirit or doubt, he may be more sensitive to or influenced by negative information during the evaluation process.
 This could reinforce his original disbelief.

   After analysing the component parts separately and then how they are interrelated, the marketing researcher is then able to determine how the whole decision process emerges. He therefore has a better understanding of that process than he would have had by looking at the process as a whole without analysis for components of decision making.

4. Marketing research is clear and precise in its findings. Scientific knowledge strives for precision, accuracy, and reduction of errors although it is almost always impossible to achieve these completely. Researchers try to achieve this when solving marketing problems. The marketing research as try to achieve these objectives by standing stating questions with maximal clarity, giving unambiguous definitions to concepts and measures, and recording observations as  completely and in as much detail as possible. For example, in carrying out marketing segmentation studies, the researchers could define very specifically what the relevant criteria (for instance, age, income, geographic location, personality and so on) for segmenting a market, the reason for using this criteria.

5. Marketing research knowledge is communicable. Marketing research must be, in principle communicable, that is, he must be sufficiently complete in its reporting of methodologies and use and sufficiently precise in the presentation of its results, to enable another independent researcher to replicate the study of independent verification or to determine whether replication is desirable.

6. Marketing research findings are verifiable (falsifiable). Marketing research findings or knowledge must be testable impeccably through observational or experimental experiences. This is one of the basic Rules of a science. It must be possible to demonstrate that a given marketing proposition, or findings or theory is false. This is necessary because there may be other untested theories or explanations which could account for the results we obtained in our study of a marketing program or proposition. if the possibility of proving an ideal false or wrong is not inherent in our test of an idea, then we cannot put much faith in the evidence that suggests it to be true.

7. Marketing research is systematic and methodical. Marketing research in a given problem should Begin with relevant current knowledge or problem as the starting point and proceed in a carefully planned way to satisfy explicit previously defined information needs. This involves a careful definition of the specific problems faced by the marketer. There are A series of steps the marketing researcher must take in order to complete a meaningful bit of research. Among these steps are the careful selection of the experimental design and other analytical techniques to be used in the investigation.

8. Marketing research findings are generalizable. Marketing research findings or knowledge can be generalized. The marketing research I can place individual facts into general patterns which should be applicable to wide variety of phenomena. For instance, the marketing researcher is concerned with determining what a given buyer does that is the same each time he purchases a particular product ; that is, what it is that occurs in one buying instance that the marketing researcher can confidently predict will happen again in the next comparable buying instance. The marketing researcher is concerned with learning not just what one individual buyer does in a situation but rather what he does that others are likely to do in the same situation.

9. Marketing research establishes laws. Marketing research 6 laws, that is, general enduring patterns of consumer behaviour. Marketing researchers tried to convert a particular facts into a case of a general law.

10.  marketing research is explanatory. In scientific marketing research, it is not sufficient to describe certain market phenomena, it is also necessary to explain them or to provide better explanations where possible. When this is done, it enables the marketing strategist to formulate his market policies more effectively. For example, knowing the shape of a demand curve or having a description of it, is useful for determining the price and levels of production. However, knowing why the demand curve has a particular shape, that is, having an explanation of it, enables the marketer to undertake actions that can shift the demand curve in a desirable direction and perhaps alter the elasticity in favourable ways. In this case the explanation identifies relevant factors which can be manipulated.

11. Marketing research predicts. For instance, in addition to explaining how market processes occur, it is also desirable to be able to say with reasonable certainty how they may occur in the future. This enables the manager to be able to plan for the future and equally importantly to be able to intervene in the market processes and influence the outcome.

12. Marketing research is open. All scientific or marketing research statements must be respectable to tests which make possible the refutation, otherwise we cannot have confidence in its truth. For this reason existing theories should never be accepted as rigid, unimproved or unalterable. Existing theories may be falsified sooner or later, and new improved theories take their places.