According to the American Marketing Association:Marketing research is the function that connects the consumer, customer, and audience to the marketer through information: information used to identify and define opportunities and marketing problems; generate, refine and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process. Market research specifies the information needed to address these issues, designs the method for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes and communicates the findings and their implications. (Marketing Research, 2007, p.9). Marketing research can be a large and complex process. Companies aware of this fact tend to focus on the tools and resources that will best benefit them as quickly as possible to avoid unnecessary costs and time. Identifying the best tools can be critical to the success of implementing a market research plan. This article will discuss some of the differences between the different types of marketing research and the tools each approach uses. Primary Research and Secondary Research Marketing researchers must decide what will work best for their purposes. This starts with understanding the fundamental differences in the types of research available to them. A logical start is to understand primary and secondary research. This will allow the researcher to establish a solid start to their research plan, while providing the foundation for fine-tuning the research question they are trying to answer. Primary research is defined as original data. This is a very non-descriptive definition, so to dig deeper, take a look at some of the tools that are… middle of paper… s. Poll results tend to be more black and white. This is because in order to quantify the results the researcher does not have to have an overwhelming list of values. Variables need to be reduced to make them more manageable. Conclusion Any effective marketing researcher must understand the differences between primary and secondary research. They also need to understand the difference between qualitative and quantitative research methods. Each method produces different results and covers different research objectives. Researchers need to understand what their research question is so they know how to implement the right research tools and methods. Works Cited Aaker, D. A., Kumar, V., & Day, G. S. (2007). Marketing Research (9th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Mangham, Dawn T. (2011). Re: WK2 DQ2. Retrieved from University of Phoenix MKT441 website.