Primary data, Secondary data and Marketing Intelligence

Primary data is made for the specific purpose of addressing the problem at hand by a researcher.
They are tailored individually for the decision-makers of organisations. Whereas, secondary data
has already been collected by others for purposes other than the problem at hand. Marketing
intelligence can be defined as ‘qualified observations of events and developments in the marketing
environment’.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Secondary data

Secondary data is easily accessible, relatively inexpensive and can be obtained quickly. Secondary
data can help you in diagnosing the research problem, developing an approach to the problem,
developing a sampling plan, formulating an appropriate research design, answering certain
research questions, testing out some hypotheses, interpreting primary data with more insight and
validating qualitative research findings.
Due to secondary data having been collected for use in other purposes , their usefulness to the
current problem may be limited in several important ways, including relevance and accuracy.

Criteria for evaluating secondary data

 Specifications and research design: The specifications or the research design used to
collect the data should be critically examined to identify possible sources of bias.
 Error and accuracy: Secondary data can have a number of sources of errors or
inaccuracies, including errors in the approach, research design, sampling, data collection,
analysis, and reporting stages of the project.
 Currency, when the data was collected: Secondary data may not be current and the time
lag between data collection and publication may be long.
 Objective: The purpose for which the data was collected. Data is invariably collected with
some objective in mind, and a fundamental question to ask is why the data were collected
in the first place. The objective for collecting data will ultimately determine the purpose
for which that information is relevant and useful.
 Nature, the content of the data: The nature, or content, of the data should be examined
with special attention to the definition of key variables, the units of measurement, the
categories used and the relationships examined. If the key variables have not been defined
or are defined in a manner inconsistent with the researcher’s definition, then the usefulness
of the data is limited.
 Dependability: An overall indication of the dependability of data may be obtained by
examining the expertise, credibility, reputation and trustworthiness of the source. This
information can be obtained by checking with others who have used the information
provided by the source.
Classification of Secondary Data

Internal data is the data generated within the organization for which the research is being
conducted. Whereas external data, is the data generated by sources outside the organisation. This
data may exist in the form of published material, online databases, or information made available
by syndicated services.

Published External Secondary Sources

External business sources are mainly general business sources and government sources. The
general business sources are guides, directories, indexes and statistical data. Government sources
include census data and other government publications.

Computerized Databases and their classification

Most of the published information is also available in the form of computerised databases.
Computerised databases contain information that has been made available in computer-readable
form for electronic distribution. Advantages of computerized databases are:
 The data is current and up to date
 As publishers and data compilers are now using computers, the search process is more
comprehensive, quicker and simpler
 Online vendors provide ready access to hundreds of databases and this information can be
accessed instantaneously
 The cost of accessing this data is relatively low as it is convenient to access.

Databases can be classified into online, internet and offline databases. They can further be
classified into bibliographic, numeric, full text, directory or special-purpose databases.

Syndicated sources of secondary data

Syndicated data sources can be classified into data from households and data from institutions.
Data from households include psychographics and lifestyles surveys, advertising evaluation
surveys, general surveys, media panels, purchase panels and electronic scanner devices. Data from
institutions include retailer and wholesaler audits and industrial firms.