Secondary Research

Before we go any further, we should perhaps look at the difference between, market research and marketing research. Some people make no distinction between the two, but as business students we probably should.

Marketing research is research into all aspects of marketing, not just the market, it could be research in to any part of the Marketing Mix (4Ps)

Secondary research is another way of conducting marketing research, however it differs from primary research as the information found has already been put together by someone else. Some people think of it as “secondhand” information.

Primary research is also know as field research and secondary research has another name, desk research, as it traditionally involved sitting at a desk reading through lots a material. An example could be visiting a library and reading through books, reports and newspapers and extracting the information that was relevant. Now we have PCs and the internet there is an enormous amount of secondary data available to us.

If you ran your own business, you would be interested in the state of the UK economy for marketing and other purposes. It would however be very difficult to conduct your own survey to find out about the economy, you would therefore have to rely on information compiled by other people ie. secondary data. Have a look at the following site and look at this secondary data and consider how it might affect different types of business? How could it change their marketing?

You may want to find out about a local economy where you are selling your product or thinking of selling your product. Have look at the following site, how could these figures help you.

Sometimes more specific information might be required e.g. on a specific market. The Financial Times is a business newspaper, and one of the things it provides are stories about different markets. Have a look at the site, but don’t worry if you don’t understand everything it is quite specialised, just try to get a basic understanding about what is available. Again this is secondary research.

Another way of obtaining research into specific markets, without having to conduct primary research, is to a use a company that specialising in conducting market research and sells ready made reports. The following link takes you to a company that does this; it sells detailed reports but also allows you to see a brief summary for free. Have look to see what information you can obtain. Allowing specialist to obtain the data, will often mean the data has been collected and analysed properly and it is cheaper than collecting it yourself. As they are specialist in collecting, analysing marketing research data and produce reports that most business people would understand, the information is usually reliable.

Another source of secondary data that businesses often use is to look at company accounts. The marketing department may use their company accounts to check the sales figures, as these have been compiled and produced by the company accountants the data is secondary to the marketing department. There may be other reasons for looking at company accounts, for instance looking at the accounts of competitors, suppliers or business customers.
Have a look at the key financial data of this local football club.

OK, you have now had a look a variety of secondary data that is available and a lot of it is free. There are some disadvantages and some points of caution when using secondary data, some of these you should probably be able to work out from the following tests. For example, when students are using the internet to research for assignments, they are very good at finding useful information, but sometimes forget to check how valid it is. It is always a good idea to see how old the information is, it is no good basing your marketing plans on a report about your market that is a few years old, as the market may have totally changed since then. You should also check who produced the information, is it from a reliable source, e.g. government statistics, a well known university or business, we all know for instance, that the stories in some newspapers are not as reliable as others! A further thing to check when using the internet for research is, which country is it from? If you are looking at information about Oldham, be aware there is more than one Oldham

Now test your understanding and hopefully learn a little more with these quizzes