How to Write a Research Essay in Marketing

Writing guide
Posted on August 13, 2019

If you study marketing as a part of your college course then you understand the importance of accomplishing an accurately researched essay in marketing. Marketing can be the key to product adoption success or market advantage. You should research the key marketing attributes as the right way for deploying the marketing strategy. Some part of your research essay writing would be based on deciding what aspects of marketing are crucial for the research, the company chosen for the research and the product characteristics. Together with the investigating the marketing issue and subsequent questions with potential sources, it is also crucial to know how to actually write this kind of academic assignment. The point is that your research can simply get lost in the text that is not clear or fails to communicate the findings.

What you have to keep in mind when writing a research essay in marketing is that there is more than just writing a beginning, middle and conclusion. The truth is that this paper is about expressing your research findings precisely and with the intellect required to engaged the readers.
For a marketing research essay to be successful you have to take the right steps. In case of marketing essays, it’s better to start with a logical framework created from past specialists. Here, you will want to study the chosen products or company in order to understand the market position. Feel free to apply the well-known theories of Philip Kotler and Michael Porter in order to gain a perspective on the chosen topic and support your ideas with trustworthy facts.

Choosing a Topics & Writing Research Essays in Marketing

To write the research essay in marketing, it is important for you to understand the basic purpose of this subject. To put it simply, marketing is a field of study that is focused on analyzing a range of market segments concerning their potential financial profit. Just like the other college research essays, a good one in marketing begins with choosing a compelling topic. In other words, it’s time to decide what aspect of marketing you’re going to discuss in your paper. However, you need to keep in mind that no matter how compelling the chosen topic is, it won’t do you any good if you don’t support it with factual data and stats. This in turn means that you have to do a lot of researching and then narrow your topic down.

As a marketing student, you have an access to many different resources such as internet, your college library that help you to come up with a good research idea. Nonetheless, the thought of creating the research essay may be pretty daunting, especially if you’re still at the brainstorming level and have no idea what to write about.

Just like in case with any other writing, begin by thinking about your audience. Then, create a 1-2-3 list of research essay topics that are most interesting to you, as well as the topics that you know will intrigue your readers.

However, if you are still struggling to choose one topic out of the many available options, we’re here to provide some topics that you may pin down one from.

Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is about any type of marketing strategies that happen on the web. It is also referred to as online marketing that includes many different forms like email, search engine and ad marketing. Here are the potential topics in this area:

  • The Future Challenges of Online Advertising Strategies;
  • Behavioral Targeting as the Key Method to Attract Online Customers;
  • Click Fraud as One of the Biggest Problems Online Advertisers Face Today;
  • Dynamic Advertising as the Number One Method to Develop Personalized and Relevant Ad.

Trade Marketing

Trade marketing (B2B marketing) usually includes various promotional activities that are created to improve demands of selected services and products among different supply chain partners. In other words, trade marketing is not just targeting customers. It is also targeting wholesalers, retailers and distributors.

  • The Key Lessons and Challenges of Trade Marketing Today;
  • Potential Sales Opportunities in a Market for Modern Distributors;
  • Techniques that Make Product Affect Everyone in the Supply Chain;
  • How to Make Product More Appealing To Retailers?

International Marketing

International marketing is used in order to market services and products simultaneously in different countries all over the globe.

  • Shelf Spacing Competition: A Comparative Analysis of International and Local Brand;
  • How the US Marketing Affects the Other Countries;
  • The US Digital Consumer: Nuances and Opportunities for Brands;
  • Cultural Targeting in the Field of International Marketing.

Geographical Marketing

Geographical marketing is concentrated on integrating geographical intelligence into the company’s campaigns. This kind of marketing is important because collecting data and using figures and facts based on this or that location increases the chances of the marketing campaign’s success.

  • The Influence of the Geographic Location of the Customer;
  • Why Geography Matters in Marketing;
  • The Role of Geographic Data & Localization in Seizing New Business Opportunities;
  • Globalization as a Method to Communicate More Effectively with Customers.

Others

  • The Concept of Attractiveness in Michael Porter’s Five Forces Model;
  • Brand Attributes That Lead to an Increase in Customer Loyalty;
  • Understanding Customer Perceptions Around Event Sponsorships;
  • Marketing Challenges Related to Evolving Family Structures.

Now again, you have to keep in mind that a research essay in marketing is still an essay. This means that this paper has to be created in an engaging way. No matter how crucial it is to use trustworthy data and stats for this essay, writing skills are vital as well.

Create an Outline & Write the Essay on Its Basis

Once you are done with the marketing thesis, the next step includes not only brainstorming but writing down an outline with brief notes for every section as logical means to prove your thesis. Clearly, marketing research essay’s outline would first have information on the expert framework, and after that how it is applied in the real-life situations. From this point, presenting concrete and specific examples is always desirable to follow up the thesis statement, a way of debating the main idea for your study.
The basic outline for the essay about ‘Advantages & Disadvantages of Marketing Principles’ is going to look like this:

Introduction

Mention the theories that will be covered such as market segmentation, marketing, targeting and positioning, ambush marketing, 4Ps, PESTEL analysis, Porters’ five forces, buzz marketing, Ansoffs matrix, and micro-environment factors.

The Body:

  • 4Ps
  • Ambush Marketing
  • Buzz Marketing
  • Ansoffs’ Matrix
  • Macro Environment Marketing (Includes PESTEL and Porters Five Forces)
  • Micro Environment Marketing

Conclusion

Mention there are many different methods that a company can utilize in order to successfully analyze the market.

Bibliography

Some of the resources include Ansoff, I., 1957. Strategies for Diversification. Harvard Business Review, 35(5), pp. 113-124.; Ansoff, I., 1965. Corporate Strategy. New York: McGraw Hill.)

Without a doubt, you know how important a good introduction for a research essay is. How many times have you already grappled with how to begin a research essay? The reality is that a research essay in marketing (or any other subject) should have an attention-grabbing introduction that not only summarizes what the project is about but also grips your readers and creates interest in your topic.

By approaching the essay research in marketing as something that is important to your readers and the other members of the community you will be able to start your essay properly. At the same time, you have to remain logical and communicate the step-by-step means of how you approach your argument. Thus, the text of your essay will come naturally. In other words, if the research essay introduction does an effective job, it will become a roadmap for your assignment.

The body of the research essay in marketing is the most important and the longest part of the project. You, as the author, have to check your outline and cover it with the relevant information. Allow the body of your essay to reflect all of your findings as specifically as you possibly can. If you write the research essay on “Tapplock Diversity Strategy”, use your body to tell your readers that according to the findings of your research, “the most suitable target market for Tapplock to boost sales by 40% at the end of 2019 is targeting on construction employees in the United States who need easy adaptor, convenience and high security biometric functions to protect the tool of greater value”.

The concluding part of the research essay in marketing is a must have because you have to use it to wrap your findings up. What is more, it is important to use the conclusion to ask the questions that may remain. If, for example, you work on the research essay titled ‘Snapchat in Small Businesses’ Growth’, let your readers know what you have learned from the research. What kind of challenges Snapchat is going to face? Does it serve as a perfect basis for the modern business? What can the owners of Snapchat expect from the future? Feel free to provide recommendations or reflections before the conclusion in order to wind down the essay. This will help you to communicate the concluding thought more efficiently.

Mind the Academic Format

A research essay in marketing has to be built according to the rules of academic writing, and appropriate formatting is an important part of it. College professors will definitely specify what format you have to follow – Chicago, MLA, APA or anything else. In case your professor doesn’t give you any specific requests, you have an opportunity to choose the formatting style that you work with easily and can stay consistent in the process.

There are three main styles that students use to format the research essays properly, referred to as Chicago Manual of Style (CMS), MLA and APA.

  • MLA style. The Modern Language Association could be an option for those who study the Humanities. In other words, theatre majors, English students and artists are well familiar with this style.
  • APA style. The American Psychological Association to be precise. This is the number one choice when it comes to social sciences. Thus, if you’re a student of the biology, medicine, sociology, social work or psychology course, consider using APA style.
  • Chicago style. Chicago formatting style is preferred by the humanities’ students, particularly the ones who study literature or some advanced segments of history and the arts.

If you think that at this stage your research essay is over, it’s just the beginning. The revision part is very important because it enables you to think about your research and the findings once again and maybe return to exploring the topic. Who knows, maybe at this level you will face new ideas and find out that you have actually missed something important that needs further elaboration.

As for the editing, things are going a completely different way. Editing is about checking the language usage, finding out if every word, phrase or sentence makes sense. As a rule, when you edit you have to read the text out loud in order to detect all mistakes. At the editing level you have to ask your friend or anyone, who can boast of professional writing skills, to read your paper and honestly tell your what is wrong with it. Use their feedback to fix all mistakes and make your final draft perfect for your professor’s requirements.
This is pretty much everything that a college student needs to know to write a research essay in marketing.

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