External sources

Secondary information is also available from outside the firm, often at little or no cost, from a variety of organisations:

Government statistics. The government publishes a vast array of information on all aspects of the economy, business, and the population. Publications such as Social Trends, Regional Trends, the Census of Population, the Family Expenditure Survey, and the Annual Abstract of Statistics provide useful background marketing information about regional and national population characteristics, income and expenditure patterns and trends, and much more.

Specialist business organisations. A number of organisations specialise in market research and produce regular reports which can be bought by the public. Examples include Neilsons Retail Audit, Mintel, and Dun and Bradstreet. Additionally, many sources of secondary market research exist on computer databases and are available to firms with computer links at a charge. These include surveys by The Economist Intelligence Unit, The Financial Times Business Information Service, and economic reports by the OECD (the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development).

International publications. Organisations such as the World Bank, United Nations, and European Community publish a wide variety of papers and journals containing economic and social data on different countries which are useful to market researchers.

Competing firms. Public limited companies (plcs) are required to produce annual reports on their activities. A rival firm will be able to obtain information about company profits and sales from these reports.

The media, TV, radio and newspapers, will often carry features on economic, business, and social patterns and trends.

Primary Research

Primary market research data

Primary data is information which is newly created by field research. Because primary information is newly created, it tends to be more expensive to gather than secondary data which is already in existence.

The major advantage of primary data is that, because it is fresh data gathered for a particular purpose, it is likely to match the firm's requirements more closely. It will also be up-to-date and exclusive to the collector.

In the past, most market research was undertaken by specialist research firms like Gallop, Mori, and the Market Research Bureau (MRB). However, new technology increasingly means that firms can carry out their own research. Large superstores can obtain primary marketing information using bar-code readers which immediately register patterns of sales with a central computer. Electronic Point-of-Sale (EPOS) systems are now used in nearly all large supermarkets and many other stores. For example, the head office of the McDonalds fast-food restaurant chain can monitor sales in every store daily and can measure the sales response of different products to particular kinds of promotional activities. This gives McDonalds an edge in being able to react very quickly to the market.

Sampling

All of the possible consumers in a market for a particular product taken together are called the target population. A survey based on primary research information from the whole population in a market is called a census. Because all possible buyers are surveyed, data gathered from a census is likely to be very accurate - and exceptionally expensive in all but the smallest markets.

Because of the expense involved in gathering data from the whole population, researchers usually survey a small part of the whole market. Selecting some of the market for research is called sampling.

Дата добавления: 2015-12-08