Primary Research

Secondary research, we learned, was pulling information from extant sources. Primary research, by contrast, is collecting data that that did not exist previously. Primary research can be quantitative or qualitative. Some methods typically typically used to collect primary data are telephone surveys, mailed questionnaires, focus groups, one-on-one interviews such as mall-intercepts, and variouis forms of observational research. Some reserachers use videotaping.

Now that the internet is in full bore, there are a number of tools that can be used economically and efficiently over the internet. When I was working as a market research these were quite novel and we didn't quite know what to make of them. I still have not seen any studies, but they seem to be close at hand and easy to use.

Entrepreneurs should carefully consider whether to conduct primary research. It can be expensive and can take a long time, running the risk that when he or she gets the information back it will be out of date. Also, for it to be useful it has to be well designed and well executed. A profesionnal survey researcher should be retained, and that can run into some money.

Nonetheless, read the Wikipedia article on it, it's very short, but has some links that may be useful to you. Plus, there are terabytes of information on survey research and quantitative methods. They give you a rich set of analytical tools which you can use to study your own enterprise and with which you ought to be familiar in case there's a study you want to read.

What do you think? I'd like to know. So post a comment.

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. For entrepreneurial real estate, go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com./blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschool.blogspot.com.