Marketing research has evolved a lot over the past couple of decades. Most great 21st-century businesses attribute a significant part of their success to extensive marketing campaigns that are in large part driven by marketing research. In most cases, however, these campaigns have been a trial and error process that costs businesses hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.  While it is essential to divert a sizable portion of your company’s budget towards marketing, it is equally important to make sure this money is being spent effectively. Older marketing research mechanisms were more random and advice-based than any marketer would like them to be. But how exactly did these mechanisms function? Let's have a brief look.  Old World Marketing Research  Old world (early) marketing research mechanisms made use of primary market research. The said product/idea was tested among the general public in various ways to gather research data. This data was then condensed to form reports t