Solving the problem: five-step marketing research approach

Scenario: You are the marketing manager for a local nonprofit charity whose funding is based on membership fees. You’ve noticed a severe drop in new memberships and a decline in repeat memberships, which is threatening your organization’s ability to survive and grow. You have decided to implement the Five-Step Marketing Research Process to help understand the problem and create solution strategies to implement. 

Create and Present to the class a 10- to 20-slide (not counting the cover slide and reference slide) Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation with speaker’s notes on the Five-Step Marketing Research Approach detailing how you will use each step to solve the membership issue the local nonprofit charity is facing.

Address the following in your role as marketing manager:

Define the Five-Step Marketing Research Approach and discuss the importance of research in marketing. 

Describe each step of the Marketing Research Approach (one slide for each step) in detail including its goal, and create an example aligned to the scenario above to illustrate how that stage would be implemented toward the problem’s solution.

Define the two types of research data this process gathers and their pros and cons. Share examples of each type that would be useful in solving the scenario.

Compare and contrast the Five-Step Process with two alternative methods for conducting marketing research.  What are the pros and cons of each?

Define what it means to differentiate a service and provide an example to illustrate how the local nonprofit charity in the scenario can use the strategy to help increase target market interest.

Explain how differentiation will help position the organization.