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Gathering data directly from the source (primary research) may not be feasible in certain circumstances. You may need to rely on existing data to understand the current market and make informed decisions, so you adopt the secondary market research approach.
In this blog, we’ll uncover the type of sources you can leverage to conduct secondary research, how to administer it, its advantages, and how you can use it with primary research.
Secondary or desk research is a market research approach where you make use of existing data sourced from various channels to draw informed conclusions.
The sources for secondary research normally include:
The information from these sources is generally accessible for free or limited cost. This approach enables you to use the data from previous research into an area of your interest and look for patterns spanning several years.
Secondary market research can help you build an excellent foundation to conduct primary market research. By outlining what information is available, you can interpret how it can inform your business growth and draw up a plan for the primary research you want to carry on yourself.
Secondary data provides you with information on the general state of the market. This gives you the freedom to carry out your research on specific business objectives to create a comprehensive picture of your target market and audience.
Before we discuss how to collect secondary data for market research, we must identify the sources of secondary data. This will help you determine the approach most suitable for your objective.
Primarily, there are two sources of secondary market research data – Internal sources & External sources.
These are the data that exist within your company’s data storage. For example, you may have customer survey data or customer support call recording available within the system.
It is the first point of source to extract insights as you have relevant information stored in your system, which is not available to other researchers or competing businesses.
These exist outside of your organization and are available for use by any researchers or business. The sources for external secondary data include government organizations, commercial market research firms, published reports, general media coverage, and white papers.
You should utilize external sources when you need information on a new topic, or you want to fill gaps in the information.
Let’s look into five steps to collect secondary data for market research.
Ask yourself these questions to determine the primary objective of your research. It will help you identify ideas that will need secondary research to investigate them.
Now to begin your research, you need to decide which data source to use. You can leverage both internal and external sources for research if required.
Create a list of sources or people who can help you with the research and narrow it down to those that can give you the relevant data.
Now that you have a list of data sources begin by discarding the irrelevant data and categorizing the required information. As you sift through the data, make sure to check the date, the source credibility, its relevance to the topic, and the methodology used by the third party.
After collecting and combining all the data in one place, you need to filter it in order to understand it. Take time to make sure all the data are in a similar format and are conducive to your secondary market research.
In the final step, evaluate the result and understand if it answers your primary research question. Identify any gaps in information you have found to repeat the steps and delve deeper.
Let’s look into some advantages of conducting secondary market research.
When you want to introduce a new product offer for a new segment of customers. In this case, you will need insights into how customers perceive your new product, the scope in the market, your primary competitors, and distribution channels.
Secondary market research can help you gather information from the available sources and build a plan unique to your brand by learning from the experience of others before you.
Primary market research, however, can help you reach out to the targeted customers and gauge their opinions and perceptions about the new product. You can run online surveys or telephone surveys to get insights on how to refine your product for it to align with customer needs.
Secondary market research is faster than primary research, which accelerates the process. You can use your internal data or learn from external reports to make informed decisions for business growth. However, it’s always best to leverage secondary data as a basis for primary research and gather your own real-time data to make insight-driven decisions.
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