Why Secondary Research Can Be Beneficial When Starting a Brand
By Kimberly Grant
Research can be boring. It takes long hours, dedication, and a never-ending quest for the truth. That’s also how I saw being a reporter. Once upon a time, when I was a college senior, I almost quit school. Why? Because I was taking a reporting class and I realized that I didn’t want to be a reporter. I was an English major with a concentration in professional writing and ready to end my career before it had started.
Career Decision
After a friend shook me and rattled my brain, I decided to stay the course. I graduated with my bachelor degree and then looked for work. What work did I end up doing, you ask? I became a reporter. Not just a regular reporter. No, no. I became an entertainment reporter. Now, that’s something I liked. Also, God has a sense of humor.
In order to be a good reporter, I had to rely on secondary research because I needed to know what I was talking about; especially when I was giving a bad review or writing a feature story. Therefore, I had to be one with the trades. But, let’s take a step back so you know what I mean by “secondary research”.
Defining the Search
In marketing, secondary research is considered data that is collected by someone else, then used for preliminary research. Secondary research is much cheaper than primary research because of the above definition. It can be external (outside of an organization) or internal (someone else in your organization collected it). For the purpose of this post, we’ll focus on the external secondary research that I used.
Researching the Fun Out of It
Trade press! Industry publications! Websites! And, general interest! Yes, all ways that I researched the film industry and the celebrities that I interviewed. (I used the exclamation points because the research was more exciting than what the titles represent.) I got to do things like read Entertainment Weekly magazine and get daily alerts from Deadline.com, which was basically reading up on TV, movies, books, and plays like a fangirl.
My life revolved around being entertained. I had found that I loved investigating entertainment. Just watching E!’s Daily Pop or WSVN’s Deco Drive was considered research and I had a great time searching.
Exclaiming the Benefits
My takeaway from my time as an entertainment reporter, from a secondary research perspective, is that searching can be fun as long as you’re passionate about the subject matter. I’m passionate about entertainment. Like many people, I love being entertained. And, I love a good exclamation point.
Interested in researching more from Kimberly Grant? You can see the last post here.
