Australian information sources for marketing planning
Thinking there would be plenty of web pages with links to information sources for marketing planning in Australia, we started searching - surprisingly, without success. So here are some links to websites that will be useful for anybody doing a situation analysis for a marketing plan, or gathering market intelligence.
Secondary data
Secondary data is information that somebody else has collected. The main starting point in Australia has to be the Australian Bureau of Statistics, with a website at www.abs.gov.au. Unfortunately, it is not exactly the world's easiest website for finding specific information. It has a massive volume of information, though some is charged for, at quite high rates. However, many users in universities and public libraries can use the AusStats service to access many of the ABS publications for no direct charge.
For data on business, see the Australian Securities and Investment Commission
www.asic.gov.au
(for companies, only the name and ACN are free, extra info must be paid for)
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC): www.accc.gov.au
Business Australia (an incomplete directory): www.agd.com.au/agdbusiness.html
Yellow Pages: www.yellowpages.com.au
For gathering marketing intelligence online, this page, from this university's Centre for Innovation and Development, is useful.
Primary market research
The focus here is on secondary research. For primary research (commissioning your own survey) visit the website of the Australian Market and Social Research Society, which has a directory of more than 200 market research companies: www.amsrs.com.au
The two main choices with primary research are (a) to commission an entire survey, or (b) to buy questions on an "omnibus survey". Many market research companies in Australia (58 of them, December 2005) do these omnibus surveys, often monthly, sampling the Australian public at large. If your research need is simple, you can buy one or more questions to be included in one of these surveys. You can find them by searching for Omnibus surveys on the AMSRS supplier database.
Syndicated research
Commissioning your own research, while it will provide you with precisely the information you need, can be very expensive. Also, high quality market research takes a while to do. It's possible to do an entire market survey in a week, from first idea to printed results, but either (a) the quality suffers, or (b) it's much more expensive. So for low-cost research that can be accessed quickly - even if it's not 100% relevant - syndicated research data can be useful. Syndicated studies usually focus on one industry, such as the well-known A C Nielsen TV meter system, for the television industry. The AMSRS used to publish an annual directory of syndicated research, but the current AMSRS database seems currently unable to list syndicated studies on an industry basis. We'll encourage them to add this capability.