Marketing Research
1
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Information that has already been
collected for another purpose.
Marketing Research
2
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Internal
◦ Collected within your firm
◦ Sales, personnel turnover, profit record, etc.
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External
◦ Collected outside the firm
◦ Three types
 Published:
 For public use
 From gov’t, nonprofits, trade orgs, companies
 Standardized/Syndicated
 Standardized reports
 Usually subscription basis
 Databases
 Bank of information
 E.g. Proquest, LexisNexis, Dialog
Marketing Research
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Quick

Easy access

Free or relatively inexpensive

Avoid “reinventing the wheel”
Marketing Research
4
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Not exactly what you need
◦ e.g. income per household instead of per person

May be old
◦ Takes time to get collected and posted

Difficult to assess quality
◦ Poorly gathered research worse than none at all

Definitions/constructs may vary
◦ E.g. categories of charitable donations
Marketing Research
5
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Fact finding
◦ Demographics, product use, trend analysis,
market tracking, environmental scanning

Model building
◦ Relationships between variables
◦ Market potential, sales forecasts

Data mining
◦ Computer driven analysis of large databases
seeking meaningful patterns
◦ Market basket analysis, sequence analysis
Marketing Research
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What was the purpose of the study?

Who collected the data?

What data were collected?
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How?
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Does it fit with other findings?
Marketing Research
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Two kinds:
◦ Syndicated: all subscribers get same info
 Pros: cheaper, quicker, higher quality than own
 Cons: no control, no advantage, contracts
◦ Standardized services: researcher follows same
process but data varies by firm
 Pros: cheaper, quicker, higher quality than own, more
custom than syndicated
 Cons: can’t customize
Marketing Research
8


Assess consumer attitudes
Define markets
◦ Grouping businesses: NAICS (SIC) business classification scheme
◦ Geodemographics (geog + demog + psych)
◦ Grouping consumers (Goldfarb; VALS2)
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Track market variables
◦ Store scanner data
◦ Home diaries, scanners
Monitor media use/effectiveness
◦ Nielsen, Arbitron, Roper Starch, Simmons
Single source data
◦ Media + purchases
Marketing Research
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

SecondaryData.com
LexisNexis:
◦ subscription-based

Proquest: access from library homepage
◦ variety of databases including ABI Inform

Statistics Canada:
◦ http://www.statcan.ca/
Marketing Research
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Marketing Research
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