The marketing research project will incorporate both primary and secondary research methods. You will identify a product or service to research. Your paper will be based on whatever you decide you want to determine from the study- i.e. attitudes, beliefs about a certain product, usage patterns of a product or services, customer/market demographics, answering “why are sales declining”, etc. Feel free to use a company/business with which you are associated. The project is designed to enable each student to gain a hands-on appreciation for differences in a population based on a sample by using various data analysis tools.
Research Report Format
Cover/Title Page
Title of the paper
Your name
Course number
Date submitted
Table of Contents
Executive Summary
Your executive summary should be less than 1 page and be analytic and descriptive in nature.
Introduction
This will start the main body of your report.
You will discuss the background of the topic, research objectives, and research thesis. Explain why research on your chosen topic is needed. What are the broad research goals (attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, customer profiles, customer satisfaction, lifestyles, etc.). What is your purpose? Who/what it will help? What is the hypothesis?
Literature Review
This section is the bulk of the report at no less than10 pages. Here you will discuss secondary research findings as it pertains to your chosen topic.
Methodology
No less than 2 pages discussing how you went about creating this document. Discussing the steps you took to deliver the research is important. Discuss the development of the questionnaire/survey; identify who you sampled, why they were chosen, and how you obtained their responses. What are your research methods? How will you accomplish the research? Exploratory/Descriptive/Causal research? Which combination will you use and why?
Data Collection Methods
What types of sampling will you use- probability or non-probability- or a combination of both? Why? How will you access the respondents-through email, phone calls, mail, etc.? Why?
Data Analysis
This section will combine the results of your secondary and primary research, and survey/questionnaire analysis to provide a comprehensive overview of the results of your work.
You should focus your analysis on issues relevant to your research objectives. When appropriate you should use each of these several times: Cross tabulations, rank and percentile, correlation analysis, descriptive statistics, charts/graphs, relative frequency histograms, hypothesis testing, etc.
Limitations
A page or two discussing issues/ problems you encountered during the process such as lack of time/experience, computer problems, data collection hurdles etc.
Conclusion/Recommendations
A page or two on your observations and clear and actionable recommendations based on the research findings. Here you can discuss what you might have done differently.
Reference Page
Appendices
A copy of your questionnaire/survey
Any appropriate supporting information
