Planning for Market Research

Exploratory Research

The exploratory approach attempts to discover general information about a topic that is not well understood by the marketer.  For instance, a marketer has heard news reports about a new Internet technology that is helping competitors but the marketer is not familiar with the technology and needs to do research to learn more.  When gaining insight (i.e., discovery) on an issue is the primary goal, exploratory research is used. 

The basic difference between exploratory and descriptive research is the research design.  Exploratory research follows a format that is less structured and more flexible than descriptive research.  This approach works well when the marketer doesn’t have an understanding of the topic or the topic is new and it is hard to pinpoint the research direction.  The downside, however, is that results may not be as useful in aiding a marketing decision.  So why use this method?  In addition to offering the marketer basic information on a topic, exploratory research may also provide direction for a more formal research effort.  For instance, exploratory research may indicate who the key decision makers are in a particular market thus enabling a more structured descriptive study targeted to this group.

Causal Research

In this form of research the marketer tries to determine if the manipulation of one variable, called the independent variable, affects another variable, called the dependent variable.  In essence, the marketer is conducting an experiment.  To be effective the design of causal research is highly structured and controlled so that other factors do not affect those being studied. 

Marketers use this approach primarily for purposes of prediction and to test hypotheses, though it can also be used to a lesser extent for discovery and explanatory purposes.  In marketing, causal research is used for many types of research including testing marketing scenarios, such as what might happen to product sales if changes are made to a product’s design or if advertising is changed.  If causal research is performed well marketers may be able to use results for forecasting what might happen if the changes are made.