The Business Builder

Market Research Tips: Doing Secondary Research Yourself

by Linda Rink, President of RINK Consulting

A few weeks ago, I was guest lecturer to a group of entrepreneurs in the process of launching their businesses. I spoke about crafting their Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and about positioning their business for the best competitive advantage (some of you will hopefully recall my earlier "Business Builder" article on this topic).

Of course, inevitably I got around to the subject of doing RESEARCH in order to validate their USP and positioning. Hands shot up - "Where do you go to do this type of research?" "'Googling' produced overwhelming results - much of it junk!" "How can I write my business plan if I can't find the information?" "I don't know where to even start!"

This reinforced to me that finding business data can be a daunting task, despite - or perhaps because of - the tremendous amount of information available. So here are some practical tips and comments about secondary research, for those of you who want to tackle it yourself.

What kind of information can you find?

Published sources can yield a wealth of information. Types of business information available from secondary sources include statistics, commentary and analysis of issues and trends, business news, research reports, company data, and industry data.

Where can you find it?

Major sources for secondary information include both easily-tapped sources, as well as more expensive, subscription- based ones:

Publications (newspapers, magazines, books)

Government statistics and publications

Chambers of Commerce

Regional planning organizations

Trade associations, special interest groups

Companies (writing about themselves)

Private studies and research reports

Internet sites and databases

Internal sources (your own historical data)

For-purchase standardized marketing data

Where and how to access this information efficiently is where the difficulty lies.

Most people immediately think of the internet. There are valid reasons for this - I myself do much of my client research online. But unless you know how to conduct a search, you can easily find yourself lost in a sea of commercial sites, some of them out-of-date, others not containing reputable information.

Here are some tips to help you:

1) The key is knowing enough about the industry in which you compete to have some idea where relevant information lies - which trade associations, trade periodicals, and business news sources are most likely to have it.

2) If you need help, I urge you to take advantage of the business reference librarian at your public library.

3) Also think about which government agencies are likely to have jurisdiction over your industry (e.g., the FDA, EPA, etc.) and hence will be publishing studies or statistics. Government sites end in ".gov" and usually have reliable data.

The portal to federal government sites is: www.usa.gov.

4) Don't forget the websites of your competitors, which may have useful (although possibly biased) industry information, as well as information about their own doings.

5) Easy access points to business information on the web include:

Yahoo! Finance
Google Finance
Hoover's (the free version)

6) Don't forget to search business news for recent items. Google, for example, has a separate "News" search.

7) When you are doing internet research, don't forget that ".com" means a commercial site. Make sure you check the validity of the site, and the information that's on it. Check how recent the information is, as well. Actually, this advice applies to any published information you find.

Finally - and perhaps most importantly - as with all research, you should have a clear idea of what specific questions you need to answer - and what you will do with the information you find - before you start. Then you will have less chance of getting sidetracked or overwhelmed. And you will have a much greater chance of finding the data you need.