The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) likely isn’t the first organization that comes to mind when you need to conduct market research.
But it turns out that the SEC offers a wealth of valuable data for small businesses–all for free.
Any company that has publicly traded debt or equity securities must file certain documents and forms with the SEC. Since 1996, most of these filings are available online via the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval system or EDGAR. The system offers access to hundreds of thousands of filings, going back to 1994 for thousands of companies. The filings are indexed and searchable by company name, ticker symbol, central index key (an SEC-used ID number), file number and more. There is also a free text search form, which accesses filings from the most recent four-year period.
The available filings provide mountains of market research and information. Even if your business is just starting out and only has a single employee, you can benefit. Your larger, publicly-traded competitors must include relevant information about their businesses in these filings. You can use this information to learn about your industry, see how competitors are responding to changes in the market, learn about their revenues, expenses and margins. The list goes on and on.
Want to read more about researching the competition? Check these out:
Unlike press releases, brochures, phone calls with salespeople and other market data gathering techniques, SEC filings are very reliable. A company’s management team has carefully prepared all of the content and lawyers and accountants have carefully reviewed them. Most importantly, the managers are putting their reputations on the line based on what these filings contain.
Go to the article: How To Use SEC filings For Your Market Research
