Understanding marketing research is critical for any business that wants to find out more about its customers, prospects, and non-customers; and figure out how best to increase its customer and sales base. In this course, you have learned how to define the research question, where to find information from internal and external sources, how to create marketing research surveys and questionnaires, and how to interpret the resulting information. In this assignment you will apply what you have learned by analyzing a consumer service in a 2500-3500 word paper.
Prompt
Congratulations! During this first week as the new Project Manager at Miscellaneous State Technology University (MSTU), we hope you are as excited about your new position as we are to have you on board!
By now, you are probably aware that a stated goal of the MSTU Board of Trustees is to increase enrollment by 5,000 students over the next five years, over its current base of 14,000 full-time undergraduate students. Since all students currently live and attend classes on our one campus, this is a major undertaking. While we all recognize that this goal, if achieved, will bring along major infrastructure questions and issues, that is not your concern for the time being.
What is your concern, and your first project, is to determine why students decide to attend MTSU, why accepted high school students decide to matriculate elsewhere, and what changes MTSU needs to make in order to achieve the stated goal.
You will meet with the Student Expansion Oversight Committee (SEOC) one week from today with your initial proposal on how to uncover the needed information and use it to develop a plan of action. Your proposal is to include your recommendations on how to answer these questions:
What does a successful high school student seek in an institution of higher learning?
How do high school students hear about and become interested in MSTU?
Why do accepted students enroll at MSTU?
Why do accepted students decide to matriculate at institutions other than MSTU?
Why do students leave MSTU prior to graduation?
For each question 1-5 above, you should address the following points:
What specific useful information do we need to obtain?
What is the best way to obtain this information?
What primary sources of information will we use?
What secondary sources of information will we use?
For one of the questions 1-5 above, develop a solid, scientific research proposal to obtain the information via survey. The proposal will include:
target audience
type of survey
methodology for the survey
sample size and how to obtain it
a draft of the questionnaire you will use in the survey, with a minimum of 10 questions
While you do not yet know the results of this research, your methodology and questionnaire design will help determine the format (look and feel) of the data you receive. Please:
1. Summarize these expectations, and why you chose your methodology to deliver data in this manner.
2. Explain how you will evaluate this data, and how will you decide if the data is significant and worthy of action, or if the results do not give sufficient guidance (in other words, what is your plan to statistically analyze the data)?
3. Create a 1-page (maximum!) outline of how you intend to present your research findings at the end of the project.