Marketing information or data consists of secondary and primary data. Define each of these types of marketing information. Give examples for secondary and primary data.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Data, the facts and figures related to the problem, are divided into two main parts: secondary data and primary data. Secondary data are facts and figures that have already been recorded before the project at hand. Secondary data can be divided into two parts - internal and external secondary data - depending on whether the data come from inside or outside the organization needing the research. Examples of internal secondary data include financial statements, research reports, files, customer letters, sales call reports, and customer lists. Examples of external secondary data include U.S. Census reports, trade association studies and magazines, business periodicals, and Internet-based reports. Primary data are facts and figures that are newly collected for the project. Primary data can be divided into observational data, questionnaire data, and other sources of data. Examples of observational data include mechanical, personal, and neuromarketing methods. Examples of questionnaire data include idea generation methods (individual interviews, depth interviews, focus groups, and trend hunting) and idea evaluation methods (personal, mail, telephone, fax, e-mail, and online/Internet surveys). Examples of other sources of data include social media, panels, experiments, information technology, and data mining.