(a) Primary Data
Primary data are information collected by a researcher specifically for a research
assignment. In other words, primary data are information that a company must gather
because no one has compiled and published the information in a forum accessible to the
public. Companies generally take the time and allocate the resources required to gather
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primary data only when a question, issue or problem presents itself that is sufficiently
important or unique that it warrants the expenditure necessary to gather the primary data.
Primary data are original
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• With more people, time and efforts involvement the cost of the data collection goes
high. The importance of the research may go down.
• In some primary data collection methods there is no control over the data collection.
Incomplete questionnaire always give a negative impact on research.
• Trained persons are required for data collection. In experienced person in data collection
may give inadequate data of the research.
(b) Secondary Data
Secondary data are the data collected by a party not related to the research study but
collected these data for some other purpose and at different time in the past. If the researcher
uses these data then these become secondary data for the current users. These may be
available in written, typed or in electronic forms. A variety of secondary information
sources is available to the researcher gathering data on an industry, potential product
applications and the market place. Secondary data is also used to gain initial insight into the
research problem. Secondary data is classified in terms of its source – either internal or
external. Internal, or in-house data, is secondary information acquired within the
organization where research is being carried out. External secondary data is obtained from
outside sources. There are various advantages and disadvantages of using secondary data.
(i) Advantages of Secondary Data:
Advantages of secondary data are following:
• The primary advantage of secondary data is that it is cheaper and faster to access.
• Secondly, it provides a way to access the work of the best scholars all over the world.
• Thirdly, secondary data gives a frame of mind to the researcher that in which direction
he/she should go for the specific research.
• Fourthly secondary data save time, efforts and money and add to the value of the
research study.
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(ii) Disadvantages of Secondary data:
Following are the disadvantage of secondary data:
• The data collected by the third party may not be a reliable party so the reliability and
accuracy of data go down.
• Data collected in one location may not be suitable for the other one due variable
environmental factor.
• With the passage of time the data becomes obsolete and very old
• Secondary data collected can distort the results of the research. For using secondary
data a special care is required to amend or modify for use.
• Secondary data can also raise issues of authenticity and copyright.
Keeping in view the advantages and disadvantages of sources of data requirement of the
research study and time factor, both sources of data i.e. primary and secondary data have
been selected. These are used in combination to give proper coverage to the topic
For some research projects you may be required to use primary sources. How can you identify these?
Primary Sources
A primary source provides direct or firsthand evidence about an event, object, person, or work of art. Primary sources include historical and legal documents, eyewitness accounts, results of experiments, statistical data, pieces of creative writing, audio and video recordings, speeches, and art objects. Interviews, surveys, fieldwork, and Internet communications via email, blogs, listservs, and newsgroups are also primary sources. In the natural and social sciences, primary sources are often empirical studies—research where an experiment was performed or a direct observation was made. The results of empirical studies are typically found in scholarly articles or papers delivered at conferences.
Secondary Sources
Secondary sources describe, discuss, interpret, comment upon, analyze, evaluate, summarize, and process primary sources. Secondary source materials can be articles in newspapers or popular magazines, book or movie reviews, or articles found in scholarly journals that discuss or evaluate someone else's original research.
Primary data is data that is collected by a researcher from first-hand sources, using methods like surveys, interviews, or experiments. It is collected with the research project in mind, directly from primary sources.
The term is used in contrast with the term secondary data. Secondary data is data gathered from studies, surveys, or experiments that have been run by other people or for other research.
Typically, a researcher will begin a project by working with secondary data. This allows time to formulate questions and gain an understanding of the issues being dealt with before the more costly and time consuming operation of collecting primary data.
Example of Primary Data & Secondary Data
Let’s say you were researching trauma in burn survivors; You would typically begin your study by going through the literature on the subject. Data gleaned both from published papers and unpublished research notes would be secondary data. Although it isn’t primary data, it could give you invaluable information nonetheless. If you decided to go on to collect primary data, the secondary data would give you what information you need to know where to begin.
If you took a trip to a trauma unit and interviewed burn survivors, the data collected in that phase of your research would be primary data.
If one of your interviewees puts you in touch with a burn survivor support group, and you are given access to a database of information about the psychological state of a large group of survivors in the years following the burn incident, that would also be secondary, not primary, data.
Primary data
An advantage of using primary data is that researchers are collecting information for the specific purposes of their study. In essence, the questions the researchers ask are tailored to elicit the data that will help them with their study. Researchers collect the data themselves, using surveys, interviews and direct observations.
In the field of workplace health research, for example, direct observations may involve a researcher watching people at work. The researcher could count and code the number of times she sees practices or behaviours relevant to her interest; e.g. instances of improper lifting posture or the number of hostile or disrespectful interactions workers engage in with clients and customers over a period of time.
To take another example, let’s say a research team wants to find out about workers’ experiences in return to work after a work-related injury. Part of the research may involve interviewing workers by telephone about how long they were off work and about their experiences with the return-to-work process. The workers’ answers–considered primary data–will provide the researchers with specific information about the return-to-work process; e.g. they may learn about the frequency of work accommodation offers, and the reasons some workers refused such offers.
Secondary data
There are several types of secondary data. They can include information from the national population census and other government information collected by Statistics Canada. One type of secondary data that’s used increasingly is administrative data. This term refers to data that is collected routinely as part of the day-to-day operations of an organization, institution or agency. There are any number of examples: motor vehicle registrations, hospital intake and discharge records, workers’ compensation claims records, and more.
Compared to primary data, secondary data tends to be readily available and inexpensive to obtain. In addition, administrative data tends to have large samples, because the data collection is comprehensive and routine. What’s more, administrative data (and many types of secondary data) are collected over a long period. That allows researchers to detect change over time.
Going back to the return-to-work study mentioned above, the researchers could also examine secondary data in addition to the information provided by their primary data (i.e. survey results). They could look at workers’ compensation lost-time claims data to determine the amount of time workers were receiving wage replacement benefits. With a combination of these two data sources, the researchers may be able to determine which factors predict a shorter work absence among injured workers. This information could then help improve return to work for other injured workers.
The type of data researchers choose can depend on many things including the research question, their budget, their skills and available resources. Based on these and other factors, they may choose to use primary data, secondary data–or both.
Primary research:
Primary research is important to individuals conducting research because it is important to have unused, fresh and data to determine what or how they should make their product.
Few techniques of primary research are-
- Questionnaires
- Focus Groups
- Forums
Secondary research:
Secondary Research is used to check that your primary research is correct and is used to save time. It is basically any information that was gathered by other researchers.
Few techniques of secondary research are-
- Financial records
- Census data
- Statistical Information
When data through both primary and secondary methods are used correctly, the researcher is able to test the validity of the research by analyzing secondary data. Additionally, secondary data backs up the primary data the researcher collected.
Primary Data Collection Methods
Definition: When the data are collected directly by the researcher for the first time is called as Primary Data. It is original in nature and is specific to a research problem under study.
Primary Data Collection Methods
A fresh data can be collected by using the following methods:
- Interview Method: It is the most widely used primary data collection methods wherein the interviewer asks questions either personally, or through mail or telephone from the respondents to obtain the insights of the problem under study. The researcher may either visit the respondent in person at his home or meet him at the central location as mutually decided by them.And in case, a large group of respondents is to be contacted then the mail and telephone survey can be used. In the mail survey, the questionnaires are sent to the respondent who is expected to give answers to the questions via mail. In the case of a telephone survey, the interviewees are called and asked questions (closed-ended) specific to the research problem.
- Delphi Technique: It is a forecasting technique wherein the researcher elicits the information from the panel of experts either personally or through a questionnaire sent through the mail. Here, each expert in his respective field is asked to give their opinions on the problem concerned and the consolidated view of all is used to reach for the most accurate answer.
- Projective Techniques: The projective techniques are the unstructured and an indirect interview method used where the respondents are reluctant to give answers if the objective is disclosed. In order to deal with such situation, the respondents are provided with the incomplete stimulus and are required to complete it through which their underlying motivations, attitudes, opinions, feelings, etc. related to the concerned issue gets revealed. Some of the following projective techniques are used to discover the ‘whys’ of the market and the consumer behavior:
- Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): Here the respondent is presented with multiple pictures and then is asked to describe what he think the pictures represent.
- Role Playing: Under this method, the respondents are given the imaginary situations and are asked to enact in a way they would have if the situation is real.
- Cartoon Completion: Here the respondents are shown the cartoon pictures comprising of two or more characters and then are asked to give their ideas and opinions about the characters.
- Word Association: Here the researcher provides a set of words to the respondent and then ask them to tell what comes to their mind when they hear a particular word.
- Sentence Completion: The researcher provides the incomplete sentences to the respondents and asks them to complete it. This is done to check the ideas of the respondents.
- Focus Group Interview: It is one of the widely used data collection methods wherein a small group of people, usually 6-12 members come together to discuss the common areas of the problem. Here each individual is required to provide his insights on the issue concerned and reach to a unanimous decision. In this interview, there is a moderator who regulates the discussion among the group members.
- Questionnaire Method: Questionnaire is the most evident method of data collection, which is comprised of a set of questions related to the research problem. This method is very convenient in case the data are to be collected from the diverse population. It mainly includes the printed set of questions, either open-ended or closed-ended, which the respondents are required to answer on the basis of their knowledge and experience with the issue concerned.
Note: It is to be noted that these primary data collection methods can be used to collect both the qualitative and quantitative data.
Data Collection
Definition: The Data Collection is a process by which the researcher collects the information from all the relevant sources to find answers to the research problem, test the hypothesis and evaluate the outcomes
While collecting the data, the researcher must identify the type of data to be collected, source of data, and the method to be used to collect the data. Also, the answers to the questions that who, when and where the data is to be collected should be well addressed by the researcher.
The choice of data collection methods depends on the research problem under study, the research design and the information gathered about the variable. Broadly, the data collection methods can be classified into two categories:
- Primary Data Collection Methods: The primary data are the first-hand data, collected by the researcher for the first time and is original in nature. The researcher collects the fresh data when the research problem is unique, and no related research work is done by any other person. The results of the research are more accurate when the data is collected directly by the researcher but however it is costly and time-consuming.
- Secondary Data Collection Methods: When the data is collected by someone else for his research work and has already passed through the statistical analysis is called the secondary data. Thus, the secondary data is the second-hand data which is readily available from the other sources. One of the advantages of using the secondary data is that it is less expensive and at the same time easily available, but however the authenticity of the findings can be questioned.
Thus, the researcher can obtain data from either of the sources depending on the nature of his study and the pursued research objective.
Secondary Data Collection Methods
Definition: When the data are collected by someone else for a purpose other than the researcher’s current project and has already undergone the statistical analysis is called as Secondary Data.
The secondary data are readily available from the other sources and as such, there are no specific collection methods. The researcher can obtain data from the sources both internal and external to the organization. The internal sources of secondary data are:
- Sales Report
- Financial Statements
- Customer details, like name, age, contact details, etc.
- Company information
- Reports and feedback from a dealer, retailer, and distributor
- Management information system
There are several external sources from where the secondary data can be collected. These are:
- Government censuses, like the population census, agriculture census, etc.
- Information from other government departments, like social security, tax records, etc.
- Business journals
- Social Books
- Business magazines
- Libraries
- Internet, where wide knowledge about different areas is easily available.
The secondary data can be both qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative data can be obtained through newspapers, diaries, interviews, transcripts, etc., while the quantitative data can be obtained through a survey, financial statements and statistics.
One of the advantages of the secondary data is that it is easily available and hence less time is required to gather all the relevant information. Also, it is less expensive than the primary data. But however the data might not be specific to the researcher’s needs and at the same time is incomplete to reach a conclusion. Also, the authenticity of the research results might be skeptical.
What is Primary Research and How do I get Started?
Primary research is any type of research that you collect yourself. Examples include surveys, interviews, observations, and ethnographic research. A good researcher knows how to use both primary and secondary sources in their writing and to integrate them in a cohesive fashion.
Conducting primary research is a useful skill to acquire as it can greatly supplement your research in secondary sources, such as journals, magazines, or books. You can also use it as the focus of your writing project. Primary research is an excellent skill to learn as it can be useful in a variety of settings including business, personal, and academic.
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But I’m not an expert!
With some careful planning, primary research can be done by anyone, even students new to writing at the university level. The information provided on this page will help you get started.
What types of projects or activities benefit from primary research?
When you are working on a local problem that may not have been addressed before and little research is there to back it up.
Example: You are conducting research on a proposed smoking ban in Lafayette, IN. Little information has been published about the topic other than a few editorials and letters to the editor in the local paper. You can conduct primary research in the form of surveying individuals in the surrounding community and local decision makers to gain more information.
When you are working on writing about a specific group of people or a specific person.
Example: If you are writing about the activities of the Purdue Football team one of the best ways to learn about the team is to go talk to them and observe their behavior.
When you are working on a topic that is relatively new or original and few publications exist on the subject.
For example, if you wanted to write on the connection between the Purdue University Glee Club performance locations and estimated attendance of events, you would have to determine this yourself through primary research methods.
You can also use primary research to confirm or dispute national results with local trends.
For example, if you are writing about people’s opinions on Social Security reform, you could conduct a local survey and see how your local results compare to a nationwide survey conducted by the New York Times.
What types of primary research can be done?
Many types of primary research exist. This guide is designed to provide you with an overview of primary research that is often done in writing classes.
Interviews: Interviews are one-on-one or small group question and answer sessions. Interviews will provide a lot of information from a small number of people and are useful when you want to get an expert or knowledgeable opinion on a subject.
Surveys: Surveys are a form of questioning that is more rigid than interviews and that involve larger groups of people. Surveys will provide a limited amount of information from a large group of people and are useful when you want to learn what a larger population thinks.
Observations: Observations involve taking organized notes about occurrences in the world. Observations provide you insight about specific people, events, or locales and are useful when you want to learn more about an event without the biased viewpoint of an interview.
Analysis: Analysis involves collecting data and organizing it in some fashion based on criteria you develop. They are useful when you want to find some trend or pattern. A type of analysis would be to record commercials on three major television networks and analyze gender roles.
Where do I start?
Consider the following questions when beginning to think about conducting primary research:
- What do I want to discover?
- How do I plan on discovering it? (This is called your research methods or methodology)
- Who am I going to talk to/observe/survey? (These people are called your subjects or participants)
- How am I going to be able to gain access to these groups or individuals?
- What are my biases about this topic?
- How can I make sure my biases are not reflected in my research methods?
- What do I expect to discover?
Primary Research versus Secondary Research
Most students are familiar with secondary research, even if they don’t know what it is called. Secondary research is the kind of research you do in the library or online. When one is conducting secondary research, they are looking for sources of information that otherexperts, writers, and thinkers wrote about a subject. We call this kind of research ‘secondary’ because it relies on others to have collected the research and written about it.
This is in contrast to primary research. Primary research is conducted, not in the library or online, but in the world. When conducting primary research, a research will use one or more tools, or methods, to collect data directly from people or the things they are studying rather than from books or texts already written about those things or people. One example of this is the kind of research a journalist does. A journalist may look up information that has been written about the news they are investigating, but they will also go out and talk directly to other people about that news–seeking out actual witnesses on the scene or officials in charge. In the job of a journalist, this is especially important since their subject, the news, involves late breaking events that may not have been written about yet.
Note that although primary research and secondary research constitute different kinds of data collection, they go hand in hand. Most researchers will conduct both secondary research, collecting relevant information on their subject that has already been written and published, and primary research, collecting new data and evidence that no one else has collected before.
Primary Research Methods
Popular culture is rife with images of the solitary scientist locked up in her laboratory, combining the contents of test tubes or prodding a lab rat through a maze. Usually, such a scientist is engaged in one method of primary research called experimentation, in which a researcher will set up a series of tests or demonstrations in the controlled setting of a lab in order to test his or her hypothesis. What isn’t made evident in popular culture is that scientists, scholars, and researchers can actually choose to engage in a variety of different forms of primary research, depending on their field of study and the kind of knowledge they want to discover. Other examples of primary research methods include observation, interviews, focus groups or panels, surveys, and ethnography. In this class, you will probably only conduct primary research using a couple of these methods. But learning about each of them will give you a better understanding of the kinds of research that scholars and experts might do. And since scholars and researchers also write to report their primary research, it will also help you better understand the studies, reports, and articles you find when you do secondary research.
Below some common methods of primary research are defined:
Observation
This method involves going out in the world and watching, using your five senses to collect data. This method was used in the first writing project for this class, where students examined the contents and rhetorical features of a film documentary in order to come to conclusions about the arguments made in it.
Here are other ways observation might be used:
- One might observe a group or organization, exploring how business is conducted or how people in the group communicate
- One might observe artwork or other man-made or natural objects in order to interpret that artwork.
- One might view and record observations from several people’s Facebook pages to examine how this kind of social media commonly gets used.
- One might observe memorial spaces in public parks at various times in a day to record how the public makes use of those spaces.
Observation is great for inquiry in which you either can’t ask questions (for instance, a monument or painting won’t talk back) or because you want to collect information on how something works without interfering by participating yourself or asking questions for which you may or may not receive the best answers. At the same time, observation means you can only observe one or a few examples, thus it is hard to say that anything you observed is true for most or all situations.
Planning Observational Research
The plans a research makes to conduct observation depends on he kind of data she or he wants to collect. Observational data can be qualitative or quantitative.
For qualitative data, you describe, in words, what you see, taste, touch, hear, and/or smell as well as what these observations may mean. One common way to do such qualitative observational research is to use the DIE method – Describe, Interpret, Evaluate.
- Describe means that you watch, using your five senses, and write down everything you see, taste, feel, hear, or smell. You do not make any assumptions or come to any conclusions about what you are describing, but simply record what is physically observed.
- You interpret only afterward, figuring out after careful observation and description who, what, where, when, why, and how based on what you have observed.
- After that, you can evaluate, determining how the things you observed relate to the ideas you are investigating and, in particular, to your research question(s).
This strategy allows you to carefully distinguish between what is actually being observed, the reasons the phenomena you are observing are happening, and what you think it all means.
Another strategy to conduct qualitative observational research, which can be used alone or in conjunction with the DIE method is a dual-entry notebook. On each page of a dual-entry notebook, you create two parallel columns. In the left column, you describe what you observe (remember the five senses), and in the right column, you analyze and interpret what that descriptive data might mean. This allows you to jump back and forth between description and analysis, while distinguishing between what is actually being observed and what the significance of it all might be.
Quantitative observation usually involves tallying – simply making a mark every time the phenomena you are observing happens. This allows you to calculate the frequency or number of anything being observed. To do this, you must select periods of time in which to collect data and decide beforehand a certain set behaviors or phenomena you will count during each observation period. After that, of course, you must observe and tally those behaviors or phenomena. After you collect these numerical results you can interpret the data and evaluate it in terms of your research question(s).
Whichever kind of observation you perform, it will require you to make a plan with to decide what kinds of things you will look for when you observe (what kind of phenomena fits the bill for the research question you’re trying to answer). It will also often require that you plan certain times and/or place in which to do your observations. This is especially the case when you plan to observe things that happen a different times or day and/or in various locations.
When doing observational research, it can often be useful to record what you are observing, either photographing or video-recording it. This is useful because it allows you to look at it again and again. Keep in mind, though, that if a researcher records people in a way that would make them identifiable by others, they must gain permission to use those images or footage from the individuals recorded.
Interviewing
Interviews involve one-on-one sessions with individuals, in which you ask open-ended questions. You collect their broad, open-ended answers much like you do with observation, without coming to conclusions or assumptions about what the person is saying. Only afterward do you analyze the questions and relate it to the subject and your research question(s).
Interviews come in a couple different varieties. One version is a representative interview, in which you interview people who are affected by or experience a certain problem or issue. Another version is an expert interview, in which you interview people who are experts, scholars, professors, or professionals in a field related to your topic of research.
It is even possible to combine interviews with observation, by asking interview respondents to view something (like a video or a set of images) and then ask questions about what they think or noticed about the phenomena or artifacts they viewed.
Interviews are quintessentially qualitative, leading to complex understandings and viewpoints of one or a small group of people. Generally, the answers are in depth and nuanced because the respondent has some time to construct his or her answers carefully and add clarification if needed. Another good thing about interviews is that they allow you develop specific questions tailored to the individuals you are interviewing and to change your questions or come up with new questions based on the respondent’s previous answers. In this way, the interview becomes sort of a conversation; the information you collect adjusts and changes according to what you discover at that moment. Other the other hand, interviewing limits the number of people from whom you can collect information, so it isn’t as good for coming to conclusions about what most or all people think.
Planning Interview Research
You can conduct interviews in person or via writing (email, chat, instant message, etc.). Interview data can be collected via the interview respondent’s writing, by written notes you take as the interviewer, or sound-recording or video-recording. Part of planning an interview requires you to decide how you’ll conduct the interview and how you’ll collect the answers.
In general, an interview is conducted face-to-face or live over the phone. This approaching to interviewing allows you to adjust questions and come up with new ones as the conversation proceeds and new ideas emerge. It can be challenging when it comes to collect data, though. Will you take notes to record the respondent’s answers? If so, you may need to halt the interview at times to get the information recorded or ask the respondent to confirm what they said. Will you record the interview? In this case, you must get permission from the respondent to do so and you must take time to listen to the interview later in order to take notes on it. Something similar can also be done via a teleconferencing tool like Skype or even through instant messaging.
Interviews can also be conducted via email, where you send the set of questions to the respondent and they answer them on their own time. This eliminates the need to plan a time to meet and talk to the respondent. It might also lead to longer, more in-depth answers since the respondent will have the time to think about and write down their responses. What’s more, once the respondent replies, all the data is already collected in the email they send back. On the other hand, an email interview does not allow an interviewer to rephrase questions or add new ones. If a respondent didn’t understand a question, there isn’t a way to rephrase to get a better answer.
To conduct interviews of multiple respondents, you also will need to come up with a common set of questions to ask each person so that the same kind of information can be collected and compared. These questions must be phrased in such a way that they are understandable to the people you are interviewing. In addition, you must plan ahead by contacting participants to interview, set up times and places to meet them, etc.
Surveys
Surveys involve developing a series of short, easy to answer, multiple choice or multiple answer questions that are distributed to a large number of people. Usually, surveys are used to collect quantitative data; a researcher will total up each kind of answer for each question and calculate the mean (average), median (middle), and mode (most common) of those answers. As well, other statistical analysis can be done on survey data to mathematically determine how significant or remarkable certain answers are. In any case, the numerical data collected from a survey is then interpreted, looking for answers they provide to research question(s).
Surveys are great for collecting information about large groups of people, since you can distribute surveys widely, collect them as a group, quickly total up answers, and do calculations. Because of this, you can begin to make conclusions based on how representative your survey sample is of the larger group you are investigating. A good survey sample means that you can assume that even people you didn’t survey will likely answer in the same way as those you did survey.
On the other hand, you cannot collect very complex information through a survey since the people who take the survey are automatically limited in the kinds of answers they can give and the questions and answers have to remain general enough to refer to and be understandable by all people.
Planning Survey Research
Surveys will require a set of survey questions applicable to the research question(s), identification of a sample population, a way to get surveys out to that sample population, and time to collect returned surveys and calculate the data.
It can actually be quite tricky to phrase the questions and answers in a survey effectively. Since all the question need to be understandable to a large number of people, a researcher must be careful to phrase the questions in simple terms and provide explanations for more complex ideas or terms that respondents might not understand. Since most questions in a survey are multiple choice, researcher also needs to be sure they have provided all the possible answers respondents may want to give to each question, or even have an “Other” option in case the answer a respondent might give isn’t listed. Some of the questions asked might be demographic questions – questions about respondents’ age, gender, race,political or religious affiliation. These questions help a researcher determine whether the people they are surveying matches they population they want to collect data on.
There are various ways to distribute surveys: a paper form that is passed out and collected, an in-person survey in which questioned are asked and responses are collected face-to-face, or an online form that is distributed via email or some other digital media. If using online tools to write and distribute a survey, you can use tools like freeonlinesurveys.com or surveymonkey.com.
Below is a table breaking down on each method of primary research and their major features.
| Observation | Interview | Survey | |
| Definition | “Gathering data through your own senses” (Miller-Cochren & Rodrigo, p. 93) | “Asking questions of one or more people in person” (Miller-Cochren & Rodrigo, p. 93) | “Asking [short answer] questions of large groups of people” to generalize public opinion (Miller-Cochren & Rodrigo, p. 93) |
| Strengths |
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| Varieties |
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| Planning |
|
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| Collection |
|
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| Ethics |
|
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Marketing 101: Primary Data Collection - Research
In this edition of the Marketing 101 series we will take a quick look at Primary Data collection. So far we have been discussing data that is considered secondary. Secondary data was collected by someone else. Whether it was your sales department, or a comScore research report that you purchased, it was created by someone else other than your department. It did not involve any of your department interacting with existing and potential customers to collect data. It was not collected with your marketing objectives in mind.
There is nothing wrong with secondary data. You cannot perform any Market Intelligence without secondary data. It is a great and necessary starting point for any of your research. Secondary data is critical when you are defining the problems and objectives that are the focus of your Marketing Intelligence initiatives. However in most cases, you will need to collect primary data of some kind in order to have the information you need to make real decisions.
What is Primary Data?
Primary Data is research that has been conducted by your organization, first hand. It is also known as Field Research. It is usually more reliable than secondary data, because it is usually more accurate since you collected it yourself. Primary data is specific and relevant to your products and services. However, Primary Data is often very time consuming to collect, and usually costs more to create than purchasing secondary data reports. You must take special care when collecting primary data. It needs to be relevant, current, and as unbiased as possible.
Primary Data is relevant when it directly applies to your company's products and services. It is relevant when it relates to the problems you are trying to solve, and the marketing goals of your organization. Primary Data is current when it is recent, and directly corresponds to the profile of your customers TODAY. Primary Data is unbiased when your subjects have been honest and open during data collection. When constructing your Primary Data collection plan, you must consider research methods, contact methods, the sampling plan, and your research instruments.
Research Methods consist of observation, surveys, and experimentation. Contact Methods typically consist of mail, phone, personal interaction, and various online methods. Sampling Plans take into account units, size, and procedures. Research Instruments typically consist of questionnaires and other mechanical instruments. Let's start with a quick discussion of Research Methods. There are three typical ways that Primary Data is collected in marketing: observation, surveys, and experiments.
Observation
Observation is the collection of Primary Data through observing people, their actions and the situations they are in. Observation may be the easiest research to do. Typically, observation is also the most cost effective method. Observation can also give you data that people aren't usually willing to tell you themselves, such as their feelings, emotions, attitudes or the motives behind their buying decisions.
How does observation work? It's extremely simple. Take a restaurant franchise owner. He may be planning on opening another location. He may also have little or no money to pay for marketing research. However a lot of the data he needs he can collect himself. He can get into his car and drive around town, observing the traffic patterns. He can see where his clientele goes to shop. He can see what time the traffic appears. He can call real estate agents and ask them for lease prices for different properties. He can drive around and look for areas that don't have his type of restaurant, looking for areas of little competition. He can do all of this for just the cost of the gas in his car. You can do this yourself.
Surveys
Surveys are the most common method of collecting Primary Data. Surveys are the best way to get the descriptive information that you need for your marketing intelligence. Simply put, surveys collect data by asking other people a series of questions about their personal knowledge, emotions, attitudes, preferences, and buying behaviors. Surveys can provide you a wealth of data. There is always a golden nugget, a piece of data that can give you the insight you need to figure out the direction of your next campaign.
However, there are drawbacks to the data you collect via surveys. Often people just don't recall some of the information that you are asking for, and as a result, they are unable to answer the questions. Therefore the response that they give will not be the complete truth, it may be something that they feel you want to hear. Sometimes people are unwilling to provide information that they might deem "private". This prevents completely truthful responses, and it skews the data that you are analyzing. If the responses seem too good to be true...they just may be.
Experimentation
Primary Data can also be collected via experimentation. Experimentation is the practice of gathering data by selecting matched groups of people, giving them different treatments or scenarios, controlling related factors in their environments, and checking for differences in their responses. Experimentation gives us what we call "causal" data. Causal data helps us explain cause and effect relationships. Experimenting helps us try to answer "why" someone is doing something, and what influences their buying behavior.
A common example of experimentation is price testing. To the buyer, price will be the final emotional factor that determines whether or not they will give us their hard earned money. Depending on the product and market segment, price may be the most important factor. How do you know what price is the right price? You have to test it. Many companies will test certain prices when collecting primary data on a new menu item that is being developed. How do you think McDonalds knows how much to charge for a Big Mac? They tested how much they can charge for that Big Mac, looking for that magic number that will provide the most sales and the most profit.
In my next post we will continue this exploration of Primary Data by examining different contact methods.
Primary Data
These are the data that are collected for the first time by an investigator for a specific purpose. Primary data are ‘pure’ in the sense that no statistical operations have been performed on them and they are original. An example of primary data is the Census of India.
- Qualitative Data: They represent some characteristics or attributes. They depict descriptions that may be observed but cannot be computed or calculated. For example, data on attributes such as intelligence, honesty, wisdom, cleanliness, and creativity collected using the students of your class a sample would be classified as qualitative. They are more exploratory than conclusive in nature.
- Quantitative Data: These can be measured and not simply observed. They can be numerically represented and calculations can be performed on them. For example, data on the number of students playing different sports from your class gives an estimate of how many of the total students play which sport. This information is numerical and can be classified as quantitative.
Data can be defined as a systematic record of a particular quantity. It is the different values of that quantity represented together in a set. It is a collection of facts and figures to be used for a specific purpose such as a survey or analysis. When arranged in an organized form, can be called information. The source of data ( primary data, secondary data) is also an important factor.
There are many ways of classifying data.
A common classification is based upon who collected the data.
Primary data: Data collected by the investigator himself/ herself for a specific purpose.
Examples: Data collected by a student for his/her thesis or research project.
(In movies) The hero is directly told by the heroine that he is her “ideal man”.
Secondary data: Data collected by someone else for some other purpose (but being utilized by the investigator for another purpose).
Examples: Census data being used to analyze the impact of education on career choice and earning.
(In movies) The hero reads a fictional account of the heroine’s “ideal man” (written for a course in English composition) that seems to describe him accurately. He seeks confirmation from his friends, concluding that he is her “ideal man”. (He never asks her directly, but assumes the “facts” are correct).
Some Advantages of using Primary data:
The investigator collects data specific to the problem under study.
There is no doubt about the quality of the data collected (for the investigator).
If required, it may be possible to obtain additional data during the study period.
Some Disadvantages of using Primary data (for reluctant/ uninterested investigators):
The investigator has to contend with all the hassles of data collection-
deciding why, what, how, when to collect
getting the data collected (personally or through others)
getting funding and dealing with funding agencies
ethical considerations (consent, permissions, etc.)
2. Ensuring the data collected is of a high standard-
all desired data is obtained accurately, and in the format it is required in
there is no fake/ cooked up data
unnecessary/ useless data has not been included
3. Cost of obtaining the data is often the major expense in studies
Some Advantages of using Secondary data:
The data’s already there- no hassles of data collection
It is less expensive
The investigator is not personally responsible for the quality of data (“I didn’t do it”)
Some disadvantages of using Secondary data:
The investigator cannot decide what is collected (if specific data about something is required, for instance).
One can only hope that the data is of good quality
Obtaining additional data (or even clarification) about something is not possible (most often)