Assignment: Five-Step Marketing Research Approach
Scenario: You are the founder and CEO of a Marquette, Michigan retail clothing e-commerce business that derives its revenue from several customer types such as tourists, snowmobilers, ATV 4-wheelers, hikers, boaters, kayakers, skiers, craft beer aficionados, Northern Michigan University students and the local citizenry. The name of your enterprise is Upper Peninsula Supply Co. You also have a brick-and-mortar store on Marquette's main shopping street. You have noticed a recent troubling decline in online and brick-and-mortar sales which is threatening your organization's ability to survive and grow. You have decided to implement the Five-Step Marketing Research Approach to help clarify the problem and develop the remedial strategies necessary to resolve the problem.
Develop a 1,050-word plan using the scenario above and employing the Five-Step Marketing Research Approach concepts in which you detail the steps you will use to determine the marketing problem that your organization is facing.
Address the following in your role as Upper Peninsula Supply Co's CEO:
• Define the Five-Step Marketing Research Approach and discuss the importance of research in marketing.
• Describe each stage of the Marketing Research Approach and explain how each stage should be implemented to generate the information needed to eventually make the best remedial strategic decision to solve the declining revenue problem.
• Define the target market that you are striving to attract to your organization. What demographics, lifestyle (psychographics) and behavior do your various customer types and potential customer types share and describe the method of research that you could use to further refine your target market definition.
• Define product differentiation. Provide an example that illustrates how your enterprise can use differentiation to help increase the target market's interest.
• Explain how this differentiation can help re-position the Upper Peninsula Supply Co. as perceived by your target market and generate incrimental revenue.
Format your assignment according to the following formatting requirements:
1. The answer should be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
2. The response also include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
3. Also Include a reference page. The Citations and references should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.