E-Marketing Research

Data for Dummies

It used to be that when marketers, researches, and college students alike wanted to find useful data for marketing research and homework and projects, they would either look for secondary data via a database of articles, scholarly journals, and studies by others in their field. Or, they would cultivate primary data by creating and sending out questionnaires, conducting focus groups, or doing things like telephone surveys, mail intercepts, and (more recently) email interviews.

But with the Internet, all of that has changed.

Secondary Data... In the Digital Age: Sure, people still use databases like LexisNexis, Mediamark (MRI) and Business Premier. And yes, people still use trusted groups like the U.S. Census, Nielsen, and Arbitron. But now more than ever, companies are turning to short-cuts such as...

1. Wikipedia: Well... this might be more along the lines of a short cut for college students who waited until last minute to write their 20-page papers. I highly doubt well-respected marketers are going to Wikipedia for information.. Or, at least, I really HOPE they aren't doing that... But either way, Wikipedia can be great for short, quick references. It has over 15 million articles and is edited by about 91,000 contributors in an estimated 270 languages (according to our textbook). Despite the impressive numbers, it can also be an incredibly unreliable source of information, as anyone with a computer can contribute (false) information to the site.

2. Social Media: Using social media rather than consulting a scholarly journal can either be considered a complete cop-out, or a complete genius. It's a cop-out because anyone can create a Facebook account or company page, and go on to review how many "fans" there are, or how many people "liked" the group/company or are "following" the group/company. Whereas, it's much more complicated and time-consuming to scroll through a database with hundreds, thousands, and even millions (if you don't carefully word search terms) articles. But, using social media is also complete genius because it's where the target market is. It makes it easy for a researcher to see what the target market is doing, what they like, what they don't, and what they do and don't respond to. It can save a lot of time and energy. A potential downfall, however, is: You can't necessarily take everything at face value. Just because someone "likes" something, doesn't mean they agree with it. And just because someone follows a company, doesn't mean they actually keep track of that company's posts, or visit the page every single day to see the latest news.


Primary Data... In the digital age: When it comes to primary data, the Internet has made methods of primary data collection faster, but it has also made it harder to determine authenticity, validity, and reliability. For instance...

1. Survey Monkey: This site makes it incredibly fast and easy to create a survey, but that means it also has a lot of drawbacks. First, everyone and their brother can make a survey, for just about anything, and try to pass it off on people. This could even be a way for a hacker to trick people into giving up personal information. Second, there are certain formats a survey needs to be successful. And if it's all right there for someone to just drag and drop, how will we ever learn how to do it right? Another drawback of doing surveys online (not in relation to Survey Monkey, but just in general), is the fact that you can't guarantee the person you want to take the survey will actually take it. People use many different computers, browsers, and e-mails. And just because you THINK you've sent it to the right person, doesn't mean you did. Not to mention the fact that people online can fake answers, or write false information down.

2. Chat rooms: Chat rooms can be used as online versions of focus groups. But as with Survey Monkey and giving surveys online, there are a lot of drawbacks. Many of them are similar to that of the online survey: You don't know who is really behind that screen name. You might be looking to interview females ages 18-24, and you might really be talking to a male age 54 (Wow, that sounded like a campaign against online dating, huh?). And even if the person IS the right age and gender, you still might not be getting true answers. The person might say what they think you want to hear, or might falsify other personal information. The interviewer will have no idea, and can't use nonverbal communication to gauge the focus group members.


So, in some ways, the Internet has made collecting primary and secondary data easier, with Wikipedia and Survey Monkey, as well as social media. But in some ways, it has made it more difficult, time consuming, and unreliable (Remember that 54-year-old, very manly-looking 18-year-old girl you're interviewing?)

Think about that next time you log in to Survey Monkey.