A Modern Approach to Applied Market Research

Description

The digital age offers amazing opportunities for market researchers because a humongous amount of free information is uploaded every day. But how do you find what is reliable? How do you turn the raw data into a final product? This book will show you how to do that.

A Modern Approach to Applied Market Research has encompassed all steps necessary to complete a market research project from scratch. While covering both pedagogical and corporate aspects, this book can help you develop unique market research skills which can be employed in any industry.

If you follow the approaches recommended in this book, you will learn how to find reliable information efficiently; how to write a winning research proposal; how to understand the scope of the study; how to analyse data; how to conduct market sizing, market forecasting, price discovery etc; how to save time throughout the project lifecycle. This book is also accompanied by an Excel data file. This is an invaluable guide for students, analysts, researchers and marketing professionals.

Why is the Book Needed?

There are several books available on market research, though all of them share two main traits. Firstly, they are heavily skewed towards academic research and lack applied aspects.

Most research books are written from the academic perspective with a strong focus on the theoretical aspects. Some of the books can easily perplex readers with overwhelming and irrelevant content. Readers can learn about the subject matter but can grasp very little when it comes to handling market research projects.

Key Subject Matter

This book tries to fill some critical gaps. One important aim is to fulfil the needs of those who want to learn about business research. Those students who are new to business research usually struggle to understand how to handle a commercial research project. One reason is that research books are written from a ‘what’ perspective instead of ‘how’. Consequently, students are stranded at the initial stage of their research project.

Market sizing and forecasting are two areas which are absent in the existing market research books. One reason could be that they are written mostly by academics. Most of the books are in their double-digit edition with minimal exposure to the recent changes in market research.

This book contains a wealth of case studies and practical examples to guide the readers through a step by step procedure.

Key Topics

•  Academic research
• Corporate/commercial market research
• Data analysis
• Data collection
• Excel for market researchers
• Google for market researchers
• Forecasting
• Regression
• Market size
• Price discovery
• Report writing in market research
• Research proposal
• Trends in market research

New Developments in Research and Analysis

The fundamentals of market research have stayed the same for decades, though the tools and medium of market research have indeed seen drastic changes. One leading example is information aggregators such as Google, which have changed the way researchers conduct their research. Alternative data, information aggregators, real-time data and big data are some other developments influencing the very nature of the way we conduct market research.

The book will try to achieve several objectives, which are:

• A unique approach to simplifying the market research
• To help develop market research skills
• Emphasis on the applied market research
• Try to enable researchers to conduct market sizing and forecasting, which are the backbone of the corporate market research
• The book should help prepare students to develop skills for consulting and advisory roles.
• Explain advanced features on how to do online research.
• Provides practical and actionable content from writing a winning research proposal to the final report submission.

Potential Readers

• The book is ideal for degree-level students who want to conduct academic research.
• This is an ideal book for students pursuing a social sciences degree or professional courses like MBA.
• This book may also be ideal for faculty members who are teaching a course on business research
• Helpful in consulting/market research projects.
• An ideal and unique book for commercial/corporate market research.
• The book is an excellent source of information for analysts.
• It is recommended for both fresh and experienced researchers.