Marketing Management, 16th Edition

Developing the Research Plan

The second stage of marketing research consists of developing the most efficient plan for gathering the needed information and then discovering what that will cost. Suppose American made a prior estimate that launching ultra-high-speed Wi-Fi service would yield a long-term profit of $50,000. If the manager believes the marketing research will lead to an improved pricing and promotional plan and a long-term profit of $90,000, he should be willing to spend up to $40,000 on this research. If the research will cost more than $40,000, it’s not worth doing. The cost of the market research should be in line with its estimated benefits.

To design a research plan, we need to make decisions about the data sources, research ...