Marketing research proposal: Executive summary; problem definition/ objectives of research, approaches to the problem; research design: kind

of information to be obtained, method of administering the questionnaire( mail, telephone, personal or electronic interviews), scaling technique, nature of questionnaire( type of questions asked, length, average interviewing time), sampling plan and size; data collection; data analysis; reporting; cost and time( CPM/ PERT), appendices. A research design involves the following components, or tasks: 1. 2. 3. 4. Define the information needed, Design the exploratory/ descriptive and / or casual phases of the research Specify the measurement and scaling producers, Construct and pretest a questionnaire( interviewing form ) or an appropriate form for data collection, 5. Specify the sampling process and sample size, 6. Develop a plan of data analysis, 2. Research design: Conclusive research design: descriptive: cross sectional: single cross sectional, and identify sources of error. Descriptive character (consumer/ market area), percentage of unites in a specified population exhibiting a certain behavior, perception of product characteristics, degree to which market variable are associated, to make specific prediction Potential sources of error: Non response error, response error, unwillingness error, Budgeting and scheduling the project: CPM/ PERT Help to ensure that the marketing research project is completed within the available resources- financial, time, personal and other.

 Descriptive research design: survey method regarding behavior, intentions, attitudes, awareness, motivation, demographical and lifestyle characteristics. ( verbally, in writing, or via computer : structure data collection: fixed alternative questions, Survey method: I. Types of survey method: telephonic interviewing( traditional telephone interviews, computer assisted telephone interviewing); personal methods (personal inhome interviews, computer assisted personal interviewing); mail method;Electronic methods: e- mail method, internet interview ( use www.createsurvey.com and www.zoomerange.com recommend page 182.;in-office interview. II. Factors effecting the survey method: task factors( diversity of questions and flexibility, sample control, quantity of data), situational factors( control of the data collection environment, speed, cost), respondent factor( perceived anonymity, social desirability/sensitive information, incidence rate, respondent control) 3. Specify the measurement and scaling producers: ( page 246 for permissible statistics, with primary scale of measurement) Characteristics of scale : description( 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neither agree nor disagree, 4 = agree and 5= strongly agree); order ( a respondents preference for the 3 brands of athletic shoes is express by the following order, with most preferred brand being listed first and the least preferred brand being listed last nike, reebok, adidas); origin. Primary scale of measurement: nominal scale ( marketing example brand numbers, store types, sex classification), ordinal scale( example quality ranking, preference ranking, market position, social class, relative attitude, opinions, perceptions, preference.

Greater or less than judgments from respondents. Interval scale( attitudinal ); ratio scale( sales, cost, income, age) Comparison of scaling techniques: comparative scales ( whether they prefer coke or pepsi) I. paired comparison can be converted to rank order, transitivity of preference, II. rank order scaling: rank brand according to preference as well as for attributes. III. Constant sum scaling: ( may not be used at questionnaire) IV. Q-sort( may not be used at questionnaire) {Use SPSS data entry, the researcher can design any of the primary type of scale: nominal, ordinal, interval or ratio,} Non comparative scaling technique (commonly used scales in marketing at page 275.) baki from 277 - 281 I. Continuous rating scale( may not be at questionnaire) II. Itemized rating scale( likert rating scale- requires the respondents to indicate the degree of agreement or disagreement with each of a series of statements about the stimulus objects. Typically each scale item has five responses categories, ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Non comparative itemized rating scale decisions: Number of scale categories, balance Vs. unbalanced scale( like extremely good, very good, good, bad, very bad, extremely bad/ extremely good, very good, good, somewhat good, bad, very bad), odd or even no. of categories, physical form or configuration, III. Semantic differential scale(measure self-concept, product concept, person concept).

4. Construct and pretest a questionnaire( interviewing form ) or an appropriate form for data collection: Follow a series of steps: specify the information needed, specify the type of interviewing method, determine the content of individual questions, design the questions to overcome the respondents inability and unwillingness to answer, decide the question structure, determine the question wording, arrange the question in proper order, identify the form and layout, reproduce the questionnaire, pretest the questionnaire. Questionnaire structure: unstructured questionnaire (open ended questions, ) structured questionnaire( multiple choice questions; dichotomous questions- has only two response alternatives: yes or noagree or disagree- no opinion , dont know, both or none. Types of information: basic information, classification information, identification information,- page 308 ( not to include into the synopsis) Some commonly used questionnaire software are survey time( www. Surveytime.com), survey pro( www.surveypro.com), surveyz( www. Surveyz.com), www.qualtrics.com. Several web sides allow users to create and file their own questionnaire for free. Crate survey( www. Createsurvey.com) allows anyone to create and admister online survey to whomever they want. Page- 315.

5. Specify the sampling process and sample size: I. sample design and procedure: Steps: target population (elements- male or female, sampling unit-colleges/ other accessible places, extent Kolkata/ India, time: period of

survey,)( as on the 2010, Kolkata urban agglomeration is home to 16 universities.Calcutta university affliated 204 colleges, other than that it has 22 engineering college, 32 medical science college, 17 enlisted management and finance college, 72 college),as per the report of the higher education in India, the access to higher education measured in term of gross enrolment ration is 15% by 2012, the end of 11th plan objective. Kolkata college going student population 403801.11( that is estimated 9% of 4486679 by 2011) for minor project: total population of India 1210193422 by 2011 (66% of population above 18 and 18years above = 7986787659 estimated) Sampling frame- College going students in Kolkata using mobile phone from different family income background.( that is a homogenous group) Computer program for randomly and efficiently generating college lists in Kolkata (Minor project) personal resource use to identify those who wearing or not wearing denim brands, Sampling technique: probabilistic sampling, cluster sampling (two stage cluster sampling as the sample of elements is drawn probabilistically from each selected cluster) cluster would be: multi stage sampling design: stage1: area of Kolkata (south, north, central Kolkata, etc) stage 2:randomly select the colleges, stage 3:undergraduate , postgraduate. (minor project- probabilistic sampling, stratified sampling) must be divide into more homogeneous group

Sample size: (market research) 384, using the www.raosoft.com/samplesize.html, by specify the margin of error expect -5

% , at confident level 95%, with Kolkata college student population 403801, with response distribution of 20%. www.custominsight.com/articles/random-sample-calculator.asp, according to this side the sample size would be 272 @ 90% confidence level, 384 @ 95% confidence level, 663 @ 99% confidence level with 5% error tolerate. For minor project, sample size is 385 from ( www,raosoft.com). 272 @ 90% confidence level, 384 @ 95% confidence level, 664 @ 99% confidence level with 5% error tolerate( www.custominsight.com/articles/random-sample-calculator.asp) Execution the sampling process: collecting data from the students in college with various course though questionnaire. 6. Develop a plan of data analysis: ( same for both minor project and mr research) The permissible statistics for data analysis are: chi-square, binomial test, ANOVA, rank-order correlation, t-test, corelation regression, factor analysis, cluster analysis, coefficient of variation or coefficient of standard deviation for comparison purpose, ( page 151. C.r.kothari)