Alan Andreasen has written a terrific, readable little book which reveals a lot of marketing research for what it is: too expensive, too ethereal, or not actionable enough.
Instead of piling one more tome on that over-crowded table he unveils a host of inexpensive research techniques that managers can do, whether they wear the robes of the marketing research priest or not.
Better still, depending on your grounding in marketing, "Marketing Research that Won't Break the Bank" is either the Rosetta Stone or the "Joy of Cooking" of cost-effective marketing research.
If your marketing background is limited, then Andreason deciphers the code. Part one of the book, comprised of the first four chapters, is especially valuable in helping you to think like a rational marketer. Can marketing research that's within reach help lead you to a cost-effective decision? Andreasen teaches you how to think about it based on clear reasoning. And chapter four, called 'Backward Marketing Research' delivers on its promise of helping you to design cost effective research that can lead to an informed decision, instead of more marketing who-ha.
If your background in marketing is stronger, then what Andreasen has written is a cookbook, although it's not the Easybake Cookbook. In chapter 10 Andreasen dares to use the words 'statistical analysis' and 'multivariate,' the warp and woof of most modern marketing research, although he does a good job at taking the sting out of them.
The meatiest part of the book, chapters five through 11, includes page after page of actionable ideas, all meant to be within reach of even drum-tight nonprofit budgets.
There are plenty of pertinent examples, including those from and for the nonprofit world. Andreasen has studied and written often on nonprofit marketing. His "Strategic Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations" written with Phil Kotler is well worth reading, too.
All that said, Andreasen is an academic, a professor of marketing at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. And although his writing is much more approachable than many in the professoriate, "Marketing Research that Won't Break the Bank" isn't beach reading. I wouldn't try and read it in bed either. Instead, find a nice hard chair and some good strong light, open the book and learn from a first-rate marketing researcher.
