Name and define the two major categories of marketing research. Provide examples for each category.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Marketing research falls into two major categories, primary research and secondary research. Primary research is an approach to researching based on the gathering of new information, using techniques such as interviewing, surveying, and observation. This research is gathered to answer a specific marketing question. Examples include the interviews you performed creating the customer profile. Other techniques include observation, focus groups, and surveying.
Secondary research is an approach to researching based on the use of existing information, often from government, commercial or academic databases and research efforts. This is research already gathered for some other reason than your specific question, but can be just as useful. The challenge in secondary analysis is finding good data, meaning data that is gathered in an unbiased way, reported fairly, and is considered by knowledgeable people to be reputable. There are several websites for finding fast and reliable secondary data for marketing research. Commercial services which offer information (and in some cases may be the only source for the data you need) abound.