External Research

(noun)

when a person has no prior knowledge about a product, which then leads them to seek information from personal or public sources.

Related Terms

Examples of External Research in the following topics:

  • Information Search

    • Internal research refers to a consumer's memory or recollection of a product, oftentimes triggered or guided by personal experience.
    • External research is conducted when a person has no prior knowledge about a product, which then leads them to seek information from personal sources (e.g. word of mouth from friends/family ) and/or public sources (e.g. online forums, consumer reports) or marketer dominated sources (e.g. sales persons, advertising) especially when a person's previous experience is limited or deemed inefficient.

  • Responding to the External Environment

    • Gathering customer feedback is so important that companies may outsource the job to market research companies.

  • Recruiting and Selecting Salespeople

    • A great deal of recent research has underscored the strategic advantage of managing employees as if they are assets rather than commodities.
    • External recruitment focuses resources on looking outside the organization for potential candidates and expanding the available talent pool.

  • Unique Issues in Nonprofit Marketing Strategies

    • HHMI is known for funding research for top scientists around the country in areas such as cancer research and renewable energy.
    • External environmental factors include customer analysis; competitor analysis; target market analysis; and evaluation of any elements of the technological, economic, cultural or political/legal environment likely to impact success.

  • Plan the Research Design

    • The research design is a framework or blueprint for conducting the marketing research project.
    • Conducting exploratory research, precisely defining the variables, and designing appropriate scales to measure them are a part of the research design.
    • A research design is a framework or blueprint for conducting the marketing research project.
    • The research plan outlines sources of existing data and spells out the specific research approaches, contact methods, sampling plans, and instruments that researchers will use to gather data.
    • Describe the formulation of research design within the context of the marketing research process

  • Researching Using Digital Media

    • The field of Internet research is relatively new and evolving.
    • Online research methods enable researchers to use increasingly sophisticated digital tools to collect data via the Internet.
    • Thus, the practice is also referred to as Internet research, Internet science, or iScience.
    • Many of these online research methods are related to existing research methodologies, but re-invent and re-think them within the scope of digital technologies, rules and media associated with the internet.
    • Specific types of research methods that incorporate digital media include:

  • Primary and Secondary Research

  • Defining Objectives and Formulating Problems

    • Defining the problem and research objectives is the first step involved in the marketing research process.
    • While research is always influenced by the researcher's research philosophy, it should be free from the personal or political biases of the researcher or the management.
    • Define the problem and research objectives.
    • There are three types of objectives that can be deployed in marketing research:
    • Outline objectives and problems as part of the marketing research process

  • Relationship Building with Various Stakeholders

    • External Stakeholders are affected by or can affect a business's actions without being directly engaged in the business.

  • Motivation

    • External influences: culture, sub-culture, locality, royalty, ethnicity, family, social class, past experience reference groups, lifestyle, and market mix factors
    • External, or extrinsic motivation comes from outside of the individual.