Most of your secondary research can be done entirely online and for free; the hard part is sorting it out and deciding what to use.
Market-specific information and general demographic reports are widely available from government agencies and independent organizations. Public documents, such as zoning records, and other statistics compiled by government agencies can help in market planning feasibility studies. State licensing records, as noted, can reveal the extent of competition for financial services business in your area; your Competitive Analyses will give you the full picture.
For demographic information, start with the U.S. census figures. Go to the census Web site at www.census.gov and click on the "American Factfinder" icon. There you can obtain statistics about your community. Specialized information on, for example, the number of women who have given birth and computer ownership in a given area, is available there. Other government sites, such as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics at www.bls.gov, also offer data. (See the Occupational Outlook Handbook at www.bls.gov/oco/.) That organization also tracks consumer spending on specific products and services. Two others are www.ipsos-reid.com and www.environics.ca.
For hundreds of other search engines, well-organized, in a wide-range of topics, including basic search engines, metasearch and much more go to www.freeality.com. Some interesting information sources are available only through specialized software if you're willing to install software on your computer to access them. (See Market Research: Surf's Up!)
Consumer demographics for most occupations, ethnic groups and other categories is very broad and can provide useful overviews, but you're not going after markets on a national scale. As far as you're concerned, all marketing is local, according to John Melchinger, The Marketing Coach™, who insists, "National data broadly interpreted means little locally and often misleads local marketers with information that simply is not true for them."
Ohio National is not affiliated with, nor does it endorse or sponsor, any particular prospecting, marketing or selling system.