Primary Research

Primary research is original data that hasn't been collected before. The researcher collects all of the data by themselves, this is usually collected by a variety of methods. Methods such as questionnaires, telephone interviews in market research and focus groups.The term primary research is used a lot in academic, market research and competitive intelligence. 


Primary research has it's advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

• The researcher can focus on qualitative and quantitative issues.
• The researcher can control the search design to fit their needs, so they can address specific research issues. 
• Primary research allows the marketer to focus on specific subjects and enables the researcher to have a higher control over how information in collects. The researcher can also decide the size of the project, time frame and goal.

Disadvantages:

• Primary research can be expensive in preparing and carrying out the research compared to secondary research. The cost can be for paper for questionnaires or the equipment for an experiment. 
• For it to be done properly primary data collection requires the development and execution of research plan. It does take longer to produce primary research than to find secondary data. 
• By the time primary data has been collected the research may be out of date.

This is an example of a survey, one of the ways a researcher collects their data.

  Different methods to collect data have their advantages and disadvantages also. Surveys are great for if you're targeting a specific audience and wanting quick and simple answers. 
A few disadvantages are that customized surveys could contain certain errors or the respondents could not give honest answers.