Secondary Data Quantifying the Target Market

The Target Market Who are they? What are their ages, incomes, race, household characteristics, employment and education qualities? Where are they? What counties, states, cities, metropolitan statistical areas have the greatest concentration of these persons. How many are there? What places have a sufficient number to make it feasible to do something unique for this group?

Segmentation Analysis Demographics provide the key to the size of the target market—“substantiality” Attitudes to price, willingness to pay more for certain product features Importance of brands, will a brand segment show distinct differences? Where they purchase, their purchase habits, when and how much. How can they be reached—reachability, what do they watch, read, listen—when and where?

PRIMARY vs. SECONDARY DATA Primary data refers to information that is developed or gathered by the researcher specifically for the research project at hand. Example: Maidenform conducts 3000 extensive survey of women between the ages of following agreement at a preliminary mall intercept interview—identifies major underlying problem with regard to their understanding of their current customers.

PRIMARY vs. SECONDARY DATA Secondary data refers to information that has previously been gathered by someone other than the researcher and/or for some other purpose than the research project at hand. Example: Maidenform examines MediaMark reports for shopper profiles of its leading retailers and examines the relationship with product shipments—identifies major underlying problem with regard to their understanding of their current customers.

Project: Exploratory Research Descriptive Consumer Profile: Based on Nielsen Homescan data and Mediamark Reports. Identifies the key demographic characteristics of the heavy user household. Update of segmentation demographics from Electronic databases—via U/A Library Excel spreadsheet of geographic areas sorted to identify the most attractive markets. Summary discussion providing recent articles reflecting marketing in this product category.

Used-Car Analogy “ Everyone drives a used car” Once data has been collected—it’s secondary data. Reliable: Others have found it to be dependable in decision making (and have published from it). Economical: Far less expensive than attempting to collect it yourself. Basic transportation: Does it improve your decision making, does it get you from a place of “uncertainty to greater understanding”?

Speed Readily available, can be obtained quickly JSeveral providers competing, most forms available electronically. JSearch costs have dropped geometrically due to the availability of Internet search engines.

Inexpensive Inexpensive compared to primary data JCompetitive information markets, and with many electronic suppliers, it’s possible to compare sources rapidly—leading to price competition. JIt is just not possible for a single firm to collect the depth of data that a specialist can accomplish.

Complementary Can be used with sales data to estimate total market size and competitor profits Firm “A” knows its sales in a sales territory. Applying national consumption statistics, it can estimate its market share. Unbiased third party source, can be agreed to by supplier and retailer.

Types of Secondary Data Internal Secondary Data Using the firm’s own data Financial records on marketing expenditures Sales data by customer External Secondary Data Published Sources (Census Materials) Syndicated Services External Databases

Types of Computerized, or “on-line” Databases Bibliographic Databases Finding previous research on the topic: Social Science Citation Index, ABI-Inform Numeric Databases Census reports Directory Databases Trade associations, Gale’s Associations Unlimited Full-text Databases Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, ABI, Wall Street Journal

Three Major External Databases ProQuest Direct Ebsco Universe Lexis/Nexis’ Academic Universe

Census of Population and Housing Statistics gathered –Census (100-Percent data) –Sample Geographic aggregations Accessing data through downloads

“100-Percent Data” Numbers of persons Ages Language and Race Households Related and unrelated individuals

Census Sample Data 1/6 Households Educational attainment (by age) Occupation of individuals Housing characteristics Household income

Mediamark Describes the most frequent purchaser, or the broadest consumer profile in terms of demographics and media usage. Describes the heavy-user Provides a profile of the purchaser purchasing at a rate disproportional to their frequency in the population.

Vitamins: Heavy Users Adult Base Heavy Users % Users % Adults

Projected Users A large national sample is developed for a report, usually greater than 1,000 persons are interviewed. From this sample, complete demographics are obtained from the respondent. Each report developed by Mediamark is a demographic breakdown of the response to a single survey question. The number projected is based on the proportion in the sample and how representative the sample was (“percent down”), Applying this to an estimate of the total population provides projected users.

Vitamins: Heavy Users % of adults (not shown)

Index: The ratio of percent of users to demographic percent of adult population

Vitamins: College Graduates

Mediamark Cautions Be sure information on a particular demographic is based on 50 or more respondents (those with fewer than 50 subjects responding affirmative to two items carries an asterisk (*). For example, fewer than 50 persons ages in sample responded affirmatively that they “had purchased a tent in the last 12 months.” Avoid being dependent on this information in building your profile.

Mediamark Cautions Only analyze the index values when it correspondents to a segment characteristic being a significant (>20%) of the users. Correct: “Persons (age) constitute 21% of all heavy vitamin and mineral users, a disproportionate share (Index=189). Dangerous: “Persons whose marital status is “other” account for 12.3% of all purchasers of tents, a disproportionate share (Index =159)