What are the sources of marketing information?
Adequate and up-to-date information about changing market conditions is necessary for successful marketing of products. Decisions concerning the type of product, the price policy, the channel of distribution and sales promotion can be made rightly with the help of right marketing information at the right time.
In order to collect marketing information, LSI conduct market research. SSI’s are often unable to afford continuous marketing research. However, they can use personal contacts and other informal methods for collecting required information about markets.
Marketing information can be collected from the following sources:
- Primary Source:
(a) Customers
(b) Dealers
(c) Salesman
- Secondary Source:
(a) Press- (e.g., Economics Times and Business Today).
(b) Govt. publications- (Different Ministries and departments of the Central Government and State Government publish regularly some journals, periodicals etc. Which contain very useful data relating to business e.g. Annual report on the working of public understandings; import policy; guidelines for industries etc.).
(c) Publication of financial institutions- The RBI, public financial institutions and commercial banks publish a lot of useful information (e.g. monthly bulletin of RBI etc.).
(d) Publication of trade associations- Trade associations and chambers of commerce collect and publish useful data for the benefit of their members (useful to analyse business trends in India).
(e) Private concerns and research institutions- Some research institutes like National Council of Applied Economic Research, Indian Institutes of Foreign Trade, etc. Conduct research studies regularly and publish data of various types. Private agencies like FICCI also publish data.
