A Jarful of Pebbles...

I have this jar thing going on where I collect pebbles for each time somebody asked me what the difference between marketing and market research is. And now that jar is full of pebbles (about 100 or so), so that means I have to, for once and for all, share with you what the fundamental difference is.

On average, people seem to think that my job is a marketer who makes brochures and publication stuff to be used for a sales activity.
Every time somebody assumed that about my profession, I have to disappoint them with generic answers like, "Yes, a marketer's job in a nutshell is to provide the sales team with marketing materials to be used in a sales activity, that is correct, but that is not what I do."

"So, what is it that you do? Aren't marketing and market research the same thing?"

No, they are not. They are, in fact, very completely different things.

By Wikipedia definition, "Marketing" is a social and managerial function that attempts to create, expand and maintain a collection of customers. It attempts to deliver demand satisfying output through profitable exchanges.

Now, this is a very holistic way of defining "Marketing". And I don't care much for the language used here, too text-book.

In my general definition, "Marketing" can be defined as something that you do or make to increase sales and revenue for your business.

While this sounds very important and vital, this is really NOT what I do.

What I do is "Market Research".

Wikipedia has cleverly summed up what "Market Research" is all about.

Market research is the process of systematic gathering, recording and analyzing of data about customers, competitors and the market.
Market research can help create a business plan, launch a new product or service, fine tune existing products and services, expand into new markets etc. It can be used to determine which portion of the population will purchase the product/service, based on variables like age, gender, location and income level. It can be found out what market characteristics your target market has. With market research, companies can learn more about current and potential customers.

As an example of how Market Research plays an important role and help the Marketing team do their job is as the following

Client: An exotic liqueur company

Background: they want to change their logo and packaging to introduce a new brand image and new USP (Unique Selling Proposition)

Research Objectives:
1. Whether the new brand image and USP is understood by the market.
2. Whether this new brand image is a direction that is good to pursue, if it is embracing a new audience (customers)

Where Market Research comes in:
1. We provide qualitative and quantitative insights for the client company to use.
Quantitatively you speak to 500 consumers of the brand or competitive brands and evaluate their reactions to the brand image concept and USP. There is a large variety of ways to conduct this: online, telephone, street intercept or mail intercept.
Qualitatively you speak to 8 groups of people, 8 respondents and 2.5 hours in each, all consumers of the brand or competitive brands. They gather in focus groups and discuss in-depth their reactions and impressions to the brand and image concept and USP.
(On the side note, Qualitative Market Research Techniques vary a great deal, so that one example I gave is one of the methodologies that we used)

2. The data that has been gathered will be analyzed and summarized and concluded, and finally we will give some directive recommendations. This is where we are worth the money, because our reports are helping the clients take the necessary actions for the best interest of the business towards the more attractive direction.

So, in a nutshell, basically we're a bunch of nosey little smurfs.

Oh, btw, I don't do quantitative research (by personal preference). I am just a little qualitative market research analyst. No quant for me please.