hifsa shaukat

Length: 2-3 pages (excluding list of references and appendix), single-spaced, MLA reference style

Suppose you are hired by Starbucks to conduct marketing research to access the market potential of selling gluten-free bakery food in their U.S. stores. You are given a budget of $20,000 and six months to conduct the marketing research. Please develop a detailed research plan that includes the purpose of the research and the plan of the research.

You should provide specific research objectives or research questions when you define the purpose of the research.

Based on the purpose of your research, you should address the following questions in your research plan: 

(1) Are you planning to collect qualitative data through focus groups?

·            If so

o   How many focus groups you are planning to hold, and what type of participants you are planning to recruit; where you plan to recruit your participants (i.e. . new york city, or other places?)

(2)    are you planning to conduct survey?

This needs to be answered even if you do not plan to conduct focus group. However, survey can also be conducted following focus groups.

·            If so

o   Which survey mode is the most appropriate in your opinion? (Note: one could also conduct a hybrid form of survey. For example, one could combine an Internet survey with a telephone survey; in-store intercept with mail survey, etc.)

o   Where do you plan to launch the survey? What is your sample size in order to be representative of your population of interest?

o   What questions are you going to ask in the survey questionnaire? Please provide specific recommendations on the survey questionnaire I provided during class.

o   Please refer to the question number when you list your recommendations. For example, your recommendation could be, removing question #3, or replacing question #7 with a new question you designed.

(3)   additionally, other types of marketing research can be supplementary to either focus group and/or survey research. Those include but not limited to: test-marketing and in-store sampling. If you are proposing those type of additional research, what are the benefits of doing so?

(4)    please provide your budget allocation for each activity you recommend (focus group, or survey/or taste test/printing materials, etc.).  I recommend using a table to show how the $20,000 would be allocated.