Primary And Secondary Market Research

Primary market research is research that you conduct yourself, rather than information that you find already published. Primary market research may result from you having direct contact with your customers or the public. This may be through the following types of information gathering.

•         Focus groups

A focus group gathers a small group of people together for a discussion with an assigned leader.

•         Customer surveys

o   Existing customers

o   Potential customers

•         Your competition

o   Solutions

o   Technologies

o   Niches

In other side, market research may also come from secondary sources. This is called as secondary market research. This is information others have acquired and already published which you may find relevant. Access to this secondary market research data may be yours for the asking and cost you only an email, letter, phone call, or perhaps a nominal fee for copying and postage. Much of it is entirely free.

•         Trade associations

•         Government information

o  Federal, state and local government reports

o  Small Business Administration

-          SBA, Small Business

o  Development Center – SBDC and Service Corp Of Retired

o  Executives – SCORE

o  U.S. Bureau of Census

•         Educational resources

•         Chambers of Commerce

•         Market research firms

o  General market profiles

o  Specific information

Most of the sources listed here have their information available to search on the Internet. Competitive information may be limited when your competitors are privately held. If possible, you may want to take on the task of playing the role of a potential customer and gain information from that perspective. Industry associations, industry publications, media coverage, information from the financial community, and their own marketing materials and websites may be good resources to identify these factors and “rate” the performance of each competitor.

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