Finding Secondary Research

In the Marketing Research Tutorial , we discussed how marketers follow two main paths for gathering information.  The first path, called primary research, involves data collection projects developed by the market researcher, such as using surveys, focus groups, experiments, and observation.  While primary research is widely used to address many marketing questions, it is not the leading type of research used by marketers.  That distinction belongs to the other research path – secondary research. 

With secondary research the marketer taps into previously collected information in order to address their research requirements.  Marketers are attracted to secondary research due to the time savings and potential cost savings in acquiring information.  Yet while secondary information holds numerous benefits and may help address many marketing questions, finding the right information often proves difficult.  This is especially the case when marketing professionals, academics and students seek product or market metrics such as finding market share figures, product sales growth rates, industry sales margins, etc.

In this part of our highly detailed Principles of Marketing Tutorials we present several alternatives for locating good secondary research information.  While secondary research can include finding information that the company itself had previously collected (i.e., internal secondary research), our focus here is on information collected by outside sources (i.e., external secondary research).

We classify the hunt for secondary data into two categories: 1) low-cost, and 2) high-cost.  For most options discussed we offer links to KnowThis.com Topic Areas where additional resources, including links to secondary research websites, can be found.

In this tutorial we use the term “research seeker” to apply to anyone who is looking for information.  However, readers should view this as a generic term as the information provided is not only useful to those holding “market research” job titles but to anyone looking for information, such as the brand manager in charge of product decisions, salespeople prospecting for new business, students writing term papers, and many more.

It should be noted that while most of the resources mentioned here are accessible over the web, several sources may only be available in print form or through CD-ROM or DVD.  For secondary research not found on the web, research seekers may look to access these through large libraries such as those at major universities.