Thursday, December 20, 2007

Marketing Research vs. Market Research

One of my research  paper at Babson is about the recommended marketing research practice for startup planning. Along my research, an interesting question is about the difference between "marketing research" and "market research". Following are a few explanations I found online:


From "Branding & Marketing" Blog:

Marketing research is sort of a communication link between company and customers, market and environment: marketing research generates and gives company information to help companies make better marketing strategies and plans.

Market research (compared to marketing research) is the part of marketing research that is about researching the market place (customer needs, competition, opportunities, changes in the marketplace).


From MarketingTeacher.com:

Market research and marketing research are often confused. 'Market' research is simply research into a specific market. It is a very narrow concept. 'Marketing' research is much broader. It not only includes 'market' research, but also areas such as research into new products, or modes of distribution such as via the Internet.


From QuickMBA.com:

Marketing Research vs. Market Research

These terms often are used interchangeably, but technically there is a difference.

Market research deals specifically with the gathering of information about a market's size and trends. Marketing research covers a wider range of activities. While it may involve market research, marketing research is a more general systematic process that can be applied to a variety of marketing problems.

From Marketing Planet:

  • Should you require qualified data on your own offer (product and services) or your current customers, then the marketing research will apply.
  • Should you require more information on the market situation, non current customers or linked offers (competitive or substitutes) you’d direct your research to market research.
Finally, via Wikipedia:

Market research
vs.
Marketing research

After all, I think the "Marketing Planet" explanation makes most sense from literacy perspective: Marketing is a verb that defines an action and is taken by businesses so more like from inside. Market is a noun that defines a part of the whole society that shares certain common characteristics.  Practically, the "Marketing Teacher" one makes sense as to do "marketing research", you have to have market research information first.


Technorati Tags     ,

2 comments:

Chris Brown said...

Thanks for gathering the links on this topic. This helps to clarify.

Chris Brown
Branding & Marketing blog

li said...

You are welcome, chris! That's a very interesting topic to know for any startup/would-be entrepreneur.