Affordable Market Research

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Copyright 2002 Bobette Kyle. All rights reserved.

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Affordable Market Research
by Bobette Kyle

Until recently, limited budgets kept most types of market
research out of reach for entrepreneurs and other small- budget
businesses. Today, through the Internet, small-budget businesses
have more research options. Secondary research sources are easier
to find. More affordable primary research methods - both
qualitative and quantitative - are available online as well.

** Market Research Categories **

There are four broad types of research, categorized by where the
research originated and how the research is conducted.

* Where the market research originated - primary versus
secondary.

Primary research originates with your company. Generally, the
results are proprietary and belong to you. You may find, however,
that some research firms will conduct limited but relatively
inexpensive primary research with the requirement that they can
make the results available to other companies. An alternative to
conducting primary research is to find secondary research, or
research that originated elsewhere. You can obtain secondary
research either by purchasing the information or finding it
through free resources.

* How the market research is conducted - qualitative versus
quantitative.

Qualitative research tends to be exploratory and directional in
nature. It is designed to bring out issues associated with the
subject matter as well as clue you in to the best general
direction to proceed. Quantitative research, on the other hand,
is designed to be analytical and rigid. This type of research
produces results that are more statistically accurate than
qualitative research results. Often, companies first conduct
qualitative research when developing a concept or looking for
ideas then later complete quantitative research to fine-tune and
optimize.

* Combining the two categories.

Combining the primary/secondary and qualitative/quantitative
categories results in the four types of research. These are:
primary quantitative, primary qualitative, secondary
quantitative, and secondary qualitative research.

** Secondary Market Research **

As a small-budget business, much of your research will be limited
to secondary research. Both the good news and the bad news is
that there is a lot of it out there. By doing a targeted Internet
search you are likely to find a lot of free, useful
information.

Potentially, you can find secondary research from numerous
sources. Press releases and news articles often quote studies.
Industry leaders and suppliers publish white papers or other
studies. Annual reports are also good places to look for industry
information. Research firms