Marketing Research for Small Business: An Efficient and Effective Functional Approach is as the title suggests, a work focused on providing small to medium sized firms with the tools and techniques needed to successfully undergo a marketing research campaign. Special consideration is made for firms with limited budgets and knowledge of appropriate research techniques. Two of the most common comments made regarding marketing research for small firms are: 1) It is too expensive and 2) it is too complicated. The authors work hard at setting straight these two chief concerns. Good marketing research can uncover substantial insight into your customer, competitor, market and potential new business opportunities. This book is primarily broken into three parts, with the first part focusing on the setup. Specifically, the content is directed at how research benefits the firm, how the research agenda is setup, and how firms can look at existing data first to answer some of their key questions. The second part looks at collecting information, either existing or new, making sure that everything you want to know is made possible. And lastly, we explain very simply how to analyze the information and turn it into usable knowledge. It is interesting sometimes when speaking with small business owners who are struggling to grow their business. They often do not really know their customer or business well for that matter. Normally, the typical entrepreneur has an idea, possibly affirms it with a few friends, and then runs with it. This is a disastrous formula with a high percentage chance of failure. It goes along with the old saying: It is much better to build on rock than sand. This simply means that preparation through knowledge gathering, preferably early in the process, is the key to success. As Benjamin Franklin once said, An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

Successful Market Research is aimed at both potential and established small business owners and details how to conduct this research using the least money and time consuming methods.

How to Design and Report Experiments is the perfect textbook and guide to the often bewildering world of experimental design and statistics. It provides a complete map of the entire process beginning with how to get ideas about research, how to refine your research question and the actual design of the experiment, leading on to statistical procedure and assistance with writing up of results. While many books look at the fundamentals of doing successful experiments and include good coverage of statistical techniques, this book very importantly considers the process in chronological order with specific attention given to effective design in the context of likely methods needed and expected results. Without full assessment of these aspects, the experience and results may not end up being as positive as one might have hoped. Ample coverage is then also provided of statistical data analysis, a hazardous journey in itself, and the reporting of findings, with numerous examples and helpful tips of common downfalls throughout. Combining light humour, empathy with solid practical guidance to ensure a positive experience overall, How to Design and Report Experiments will be essential reading for students in psychology and those in cognate disciplines with an experimental focus or content in research methods courses.

The tools you need to identify, obtain, record, and analyze data Sure, access to data is faster and easier to obtain than ever before, but how do you cut through the clutter of information to find what's most useful and organize it to suit your purposes? Marketing Research Kit For Dummies supplies a brimming box of tools that help you mine mountains of data, find the sources you need, and focus your marketing plan. Whether you're an entrepreneur, a small business owner, or a marketer in a large organization, this powerful resource and companion CD provide you with hands-on tools you need to identify, obtain, record, and analyze secondary, data-electronic and print-for developing or revising a marketing plan, launching a new product or service, or implementing long-term strategic planning. It also offers clear, in-depth instructions and customizable forms for conducting your own primary research. Includes complete instructions for writing a research plan, conducting depth interviews, and focus groups Fully explains the process of sampling, analyzing data, and reporting results Features tips on developing questionnaires for face-to-face, Internet, and postal surveys Helps you keep an eye on your competition and analyze their results When money is tight and everything is on the line, you need to make sure you've done your homework. You need Marketing Research Kit For Dummies. Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

For a company to embrace market research as a facilitator of change, it must be willing to take the approach that makes the most impact on its organization. That approach is the key in making a difference using market research. In this guide, author Anne Beall shares her unique procedure for conducting strategic market research. With more than fifteen years of experience in conducting market research, Beall details the strategic principles she has developed that impact the way in which market research can inspire and change an organization. Strategic Market Research discusses identifying the strategic questions that will help a business; using the right research techniques to answer these questions; obtaining the level of depth required to have insight; reading the nonverbal communications of research respondents when doing qualitative work; identifying the emotional aspects of human behavior; using statistical analyses to understand what drives markets; going beyond the data to interpret the results and make strategic recommendations. In addition to addressing both qualitative and quantitative research, Strategic Market Research provides real-life examples illustrating the application of these concepts in various scenarios, including businesses and non-profit organizations. Implementing the strategic approach from the beginning to the end of a project provides information that promotes change.

This textbook takes students through each stage of designing and conducting marketing research and interpreting the resulting data. Topics include (for example) sample size, the interviewing relationship, hypothesis testing, and report formats. The second edition features a new section on using Internet surveys. The CD-ROM is an SPSS 11.0 data disk containing a variety of practice cases.

From Oreos, Jell-O, raisins, and milk to amusement parks, retail centers, ATMs, and mutual funds, the case studies presented in Marketing Research That Pays Off offer you insight into how actual companies have used market research to successfully solve marketing problems. Editor Larry Percy has collected a series of cases from consumer, service, and industrial marketing executives that provides a problem/solution look at how to address major marketing issues with marketing research. The studies presented cover such topics as communications issues, new product introduction, brand equity, brand positioning, and sales analysis. Because they represent successful applications of marketing research to challenging questions, these cases offer a number of specific lessons. Throughout, Marketing Research That Pays Off shows you how to: use the right sample for reliable data reduce the time needed for traditionally multi-phased research avoid the pitfalls of short-term effects in tracking data deal with multinational research use attitude measures to help interpret sales data involve marketing management to ensure acceptance of results make effective use of small budgets The format of each chapter allows the authors to pose a question or present a particular marketing problem and then take you step-by-step through the solution. Actual problems solved include how to improve upon a successful campaign, revitalize a failing retail center, avoid misunderstanding in conducting multinational research, use scanner data to help understand the package goods market, avoid being mislead by short-term effects in tracking data, learn what aspects of a package attract attention and what they communicate, and how to effectively reach both children and their parents with one message--all on a small budget. It is the unique problem/solution approach to marketing research that makes Marketing Research That Pays Off especially valuable to all marketing research professionals and beginner- to mid-level marketing managers. In addition, the book's easy-to-read presentation of case studies makes it approachable and useful as a companion text for classes in marketing and marketing research.