Marketing Survey Research

Last updated: 03 06 2022/ Jihye Jung
1
MKT3083/MKT 5063 Marketing Research Spring 2022
Guidelines for Individual Project
Introduction
Your will design a marketing survey research project. You have the freedom to choose any
research topics applying to your workplace, a local business, or any project of your
interest.
You will attempt to put the things you learn in the course into practice to solve a real-world
problem. You will act as marketing research consultants for a local business, organization,
or any institution that engages in marketing activities (uses at least one of the 4P’s). The
big picture is as follows:
1. Identify an organization, business, or brand that you would like to learn more about.
2. Conduct background research on your topic of interest. (This means you need to do
exploratory research to identify market opportunities and problems related to your
research subject). You can use variety of sources such as news article, industry
report, and interview with a manager (or someone else who is responsible for
making marketing decisions) or current customers (i.e., in-depth interview or focus
group interview), to learn about the important marketing decisions and
uncertainties that the organization would like to understand better.
3. Based on the background research (i.e., exploratory research), identify a research
question you can help answer through survey research.
4. Write a research hypothesis.
5. Write a research plan (i.e., create research design, including research method, and
sampling).
6. Write a short questionnaire.
Format
 You can follow the template provided on the next pages (p2-3). Here are the
sections of the proposal, rough point totals for each section.
 Double-space, one-inch margins, Times New Roman, size 12 font, word format
(NOT PDF!!)
 The recommended length of the report should not exceed 10 pages, excluding
appendices, references, and the title page (use your space wisely).
 Use headers/sub-headers for distinct sections where appropriate.
 Remember to cite any external sources.
Last updated: 03 06 2022/ Jihye Jung
2
Proposal Template:
※ Follow the template headers and sub-headers. Consider the bullet points when you
write each section. However, you don’t have to answer all the bullet points. Report only
relevant information to your topic.
I. Executive Summary (5 points)
One paragraph summary of your proposal including your research topic (organization,
business, or brand), research question, and hypothesis, and research method.
II. Problem Definition and Exploratory Research (40 points)
Motivate your research by describing the marketing decision/challenge that the business
(or product/service) faces based on your exploratory research.
 Research Background (20 point)
 Describe what the business does, i.e., what is its business model. This includes:
o What does it sell? What is their business?
o Who are the current customers? You may report information related to their
demographics, product usage patterns, and/or buying habits.
o What is its growth strategy? (New products? New customers? Low-cost
production? New promotion strategy? New channel? Etc.)
o Who are the competitors?
o Are there any significant changes in environment? (e.g., regulations,
competitions, technology, consumer trends…)
 Identify Decision Problem
 Describe marketing decision question(s):
o What issues are with the business?
o Why is this question important to the business? What are the potential
consequences of the decision(s)?
 State Research Objectives and Hypothesis (20 points)
 State a (very specific) research question that can provide some insights to the
marketing decision problem. This research question should satisfy the following
criteria.
o It must be a question for which you can collect data using a consumer survey.
For example, you cannot ask “technical feasibility of new product ideas” to
customers.
o You must be able to formulate multiple testable hypotheses that directly
relate to your question.
Last updated: 03 06 2022/ Jihye Jung
3
o The question and your hypotheses must involve the relationship between
some explanatory/independent variable(s) and some outcome/dependent
variable(s).
 E.g., Introducing happy hour (independent variable) will increase the
restaurant sales (dependent variable)
III. Survey Methods, Sampling, and Questionnaire Design (55 points)
 State your sampling design (10 points)
 What is the population your research aims to target?
o Element/Unit: individual? Or family?
o Current user? Potential user? Demographic characteristics?
 How will you sample from this population?
o Sampling frame: where will you find sample?
o What is your sampling approach? (probability or a non-probability) That is,
how will you recruit them?
o If you chose probability sampling, is it a random, systematic, stratified, or
cluster sampling approach?
o If you chose non-probability sampling, is it a judgmental, snowball,
convenience or quota sampling approaches?
o Be sure to tell me why you select the sampling method.
 What is the size of the (minimum) sample you will need to test your hypothesis?
 Survey method (5 points)
 State the survey methods (i.e., personal interview, telephone, email, online,
etc.) for your research problems.
 Clearly state why the select method is the best for your research project.
 Prepare a questionnaire that accomplishes your research questions (40 points)
 Be sure to use the rules of writing good questions when you write your survey.
 The survey should have the questions that are linked to your hypotheses.
 In addition, you should also be sure to include some demographic questions.
 I suggest about 10-15 items per questionnaire excluding demographic
questions.
 I will evaluate how well the questionnaire accommodate research issues and
how well you have survey questions writing down.