Last updated July 2026
The marketing research process has six steps: define the problem, choose your research design, build your research instrument, collect data, analyze the findings, and act on them. Most of that process runs on surveys, and Paperform's survey maker is what this guide uses to walk through the steps that involve gathering data.
Market research is how businesses choose the right marketing strategies and back those decisions with real data instead of a hunch. It can feel overwhelming to start, but with a process in place, it doesn't have to be expensive or time-consuming, and it's one of the first things worth protecting when budgets get tight, not one of the first things to cut.
TL;DR
| Step | What it involves |
|---|---|
| 1. Define the issue | Identify the specific business problem you need data to solve |
| 2. Choose your research design | Pick a method: survey, interview, user test, or a mix |
| 3. Build your research instrument | Design the survey or interview guide, then pre-test it on a small group |
| 4. Collect the data | Gather responses, combining quantitative and qualitative where useful |
| 5. Analyze and report | Look for genuine patterns and turn them into a clear recommendation |
| 6. Act on it | Use the findings to shape your next marketing move, then repeat the process |
1. Define and identify the issue
The first step is identifying a problem your business is currently facing, and it's the most important part of the whole process. Most of the time this is a clear business opportunity or issue, like "too few people are making purchases after receiving our emails" or "some features of our app aren't being used as expected."
Once you can state the problem clearly, you can focus your research on that specific issue rather than gathering data broadly. If the answers you expect would solve the problem, move forward. If you're unsure, keep refining the question until it's specific enough to research.
2. Choose the right research design
With the issue defined, it's time to pick your data collection method. This shapes everything downstream, from your research questions to which audience you focus on.
Surveys are the most direct way to understand your target audience at scale. There are several types of surveys depending on what you need, and since this step feeds everything after it, the survey itself needs to be built to get honest, specific answers rather than vague ones.
Interviews give you qualitative depth a survey can't. Talking directly to customers or prospects, whether over Zoom, in a webinar, or one-on-one, surfaces opinions and context that closed questions miss.
User tests work well on a landing page or website, and are cost-effective for understanding how people react to a new product, design, or message. An A/B test paired with heat-mapping tools gives you behavioral data a questionnaire alone won't.
Research also falls into three broader types: causal (testing whether one thing directly causes another, like whether moving your call-to-action changes conversion), descriptive (measuring something in detail, usually quantitatively, like overall customer satisfaction), and exploratory (used when the issue itself isn't well understood yet, often through interviews or focus groups).
3. Prepare and create your research instrument
If you've settled on a survey, this is where you build it. Paperform's market research survey template is a ready-made starting point if you don't want to design one from scratch.
A few rules make a research instrument noticeably better:
- Keep it simple for respondents to complete.
- Keep each question short and specific.
- Give instructions for any question type that isn't self-explanatory.
- Start with general questions and move toward specific ones.
- Make sure the layout is easy to read, not just easy to build.
- Pre-test it on a small group before sending it to your full audience.
That last point matters more than it sounds. Testing on a handful of people first surfaces confusing questions or bad assumptions before they cost you a full data set.
4. Start collecting relevant data
Most market research data is quantitative (numbers) rather than qualitative (observations), but combining both usually gets you further than either alone. If you're testing new pricing tiers, for example, an A/B test gives you behavioral data, while a short round of customer interviews tells you whether people would approve of the change, not just react to it.
Keep the data collection itself unbiased: neutral question wording, and a mix of closed questions (multiple choice, yes/no) and open-ended ones that let people add context you didn't think to ask for.
A worked example: say you're testing a new product idea before building it. Rather than guessing at demand, build a short survey in Paperform asking your existing audience about the problem the product would solve, how they currently handle it, and whether they'd pay for a better solution, with one open-ended question at the end for anything you didn't ask. Send it to your list, watch responses come in through Paperform's dashboard, and you have a real answer within days instead of a guess that takes months to prove wrong.
5. Analyze the data and report the findings
Once the data is in, look for genuine patterns rather than confirming what you already assumed. It's worth writing a short research summary covering the process you used, what you found, and what you'd recommend as a result, since raw data and charts on their own don't make a decision for you.
When presenting findings, include the actual recommendation alongside the data, and use tables or charts only where they clarify something rather than pad the report out.
6. Take the research and move forward into action
The research phase is done once you've got a clear answer, but the work isn't. Whatever you learned needs to turn into an actual change: a new campaign, a pricing update, a messaging shift. And since markets and audiences keep changing, this isn't a one-time project. The same six-step process is worth repeating whenever a new decision needs real data behind it, rather than only when things go wrong.
FAQ
What are the 6 steps of the marketing research process? Define the issue, choose your research design, build your research instrument, collect the data, analyze and report the findings, then act on what you learned. The steps run in that order, though you may cycle back through them for future decisions.
Should market research use surveys, interviews, or both? It depends on what you need. Surveys are best for reaching a large audience with structured, comparable answers. Interviews add depth and context a survey can't capture. Many research projects use both: a survey for scale, followed by a handful of interviews to explain the "why" behind the numbers.
How big does my survey sample need to be? Large enough to spot a genuine pattern rather than noise, which depends on your audience size and how big a difference you're trying to detect. If your usual audience is too small for a confident sample, interviews or an influencer-driven push for reach can supplement it.
What's the difference between causal, descriptive, and exploratory research? Causal research tests whether one factor directly causes another. Descriptive research measures something in detail, usually with numbers. Exploratory research is used when the problem itself isn't well defined yet, often through interviews or focus groups, to narrow the question before running a larger study.
Why do businesses cut market research first when budgets tighten? It's often seen as a nice-to-have rather than a direct cost center, but this is usually a mistake. Skipping research doesn't remove the risk of a bad marketing decision, it just means you make that decision without data to catch it early.
How do I turn survey results into an actual marketing decision? Write a short summary of the process, the findings, and a specific recommendation, not just the raw numbers. A chart without a stated conclusion doesn't move a decision forward on its own.
Build a 5-question research survey from the template linked above, and you'll have real data on your next marketing decision before the week is out.
Neal Schaffer is an authority on helping innovative businesses digitally transform their sales and marketing. Founder of the digital marketing consultancy PDCA Social, Neal also teaches at Rutgers Business School and the Irish Management Institute.
