Towards a typology of consumer survey research

The consumer input to corporate marketing decisions is provided by relatively few types of consumer survey. These survey types, however, are given comparatively little attention in research and teaching in marketing. Courses are concerned mainly with data collection and analysis and not the links, via these consumer surveys, to management. decision. To provide a focus for academic research and teaching, this paper makes a classification of the main types of consumer survey in three main dimensions – corporate project management phase, consumer product use stage and consumer decision level allied to level of marketing strategy, This typology provides an exhaustive and mutually exclusive classification that highlights the connections between studies as well as the links to marketing theory such as segmentation. It suggests a more systematic approach to the design of corporate consumer research programmes as well as to research skills training and a metrics of marketing.