Implementing the Research Plan

The researcher next puts marketing research plan into action. It involves collecting, analyzing, and processing the information. Data collection may be carried out by outside firms or by company's marketing research staff. The company keeps more control over collection procedure and data quality using its own staff. However, outside firms that specialize in the data collection often can do the job more rapidly and at a lower cost.

The data collection phase of marketing research process is the most expensive and most subject to error generally. The researcher should watch fieldwork intimately to make sure that the plan is implemented accurately and to guard against problems along contacting respondents, with the respondents, who refuse to cooperate or who give dishonest or biased answers, and with the interviewers who make mistakes or take shortcuts.