LIBRARY GUIDE TO MKT 3020 - Marketing

To learn about the industry you are dealing with, please consider using each of the sources below. They give you different reports and downloadable data. The annotations for each source highlight what you can find in it.

• IBISWorld
  Detailed market research and analysis on over 700 U.S. industries as well as Global Industry Reports, China Industry Reports and Business Environment Reports.
• ABI/Inform Complete  - This Business database contains Industry reports from First Research by Dun and Bradstreet.  To find them be sure to include "First Research" in your search.
• MarketLine
  Includes company and industry reports, country profiles, as well as market data and country statistics.

The following resources can help you find information on consumers.  
 

• DemographicsNow
  Provides access to demographic data. Drill down to the city or neighborhood level to identify markets and audiences in your community. Ideal for supporting small business and local economic development activities. Thanks to MeL. Get data and statistics including basic demographics, purchasing habits, attitudes, and market segments
• PolicyMap
  This resource is a U.S. national data and mapping tool and analytics platform with multidisciplinary applications for college students and faculty.  Users can leverage thousands of U.S. data indicators in PolicyMap to perform demographic and socioeconomic analysis, from a neighborhood census block group in many cases, up to a national level, as well as create custom regions, for their research and studies.
• Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) - provides access to quarterly reports on income by state.
• Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) - provides employment and labor information as well as consumer spending data.
• Data.gov - a gateway to government data at the Federal, State, and even local level.

Articles can a useful when you want to learn more about a topic or trend. You can use the following resources to learn more about particular events and trends.

• ABI/Inform Complete
  Provides access to articles in scholarly, peer-reviewed business journals, trade journals and business news publications. Includes the full-text of the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and the Economist.
• Factiva
  Factiva is a premier business and general reference resource with a broad collection of sources that reach across disciplines from business and current events to communications and technology, politics, foreign policy, and more. Factiva.com combines more than 28,000 sources to give users access to premium content from 159 countries in 22 languages.
• PsycINFO
  Need articles in psychology or counseling? Use PsycINFO! It's a great resource and is published by the American Psychological Association. How to export to RefWorks

Mergent Online
Financial data on US and international publicly traded firms; includes annual reports, SEC filings, news, and other information. Limited to 7 users at a time. Log off after using!

Yahoo Finance - Business and financial information from Yahoo

Google Finance - Gateway to business and financial information on Google

Try your hand at searching some of these resources.  Complete the scavenger hunt linked below.  Don't worry, if you get something wrong there will be a video showing you how to find the correct answer.
 

Scavenger Hunt

 If you need help with writing a Marketing Plan, consider searching the library for books or ebooks on the subject.  For instance, the library has access to the ebook:

Marketing Plans 

This book has an entire chapter on marketing technology-intensive products.

Another title on writing marketing plans is:

Marketing plans how to prepare them, how to use them

This book would be a good starting place for writing a marketing plan.
 

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Research requirements (from the company)

We want to expand our offering to include two more personas - B2B SaaS startups and Consulting agencies.

Consulting agencies may include:

• Product Strategy consulting
• Market consulting
• Sales consulting

We need market research on following:

• How client prospecting and sales enablement is currently being done on the following levels:
  • Top of the funnel (Cold outreach)
  • Back of the funnel (Closing deals with warm leads)
• What is the role of Competitive Information in Sales Enablement?
• What are the biggest pain points above two personas have with prospecting and sales?
• What are the current and evolving market trends in sales enablement using personalized outreach?
• How is Artificial Intelligence I being used for personalized outreach for sales and marketing?

Keyword hints/tips

• Use quotation marks ( " ) around phrases of two or more words:
  • "artificial intelligence"
  • "sales enablement"
• Use parentheses ( ) around groups of related keywords combined with OR:
  • ("artificial intelligence" OR AI)
  • (SaaS OR "software as a service" OR "software as service")

Where to search

ABI/Inform Complete
Provides access to articles in scholarly, peer-reviewed business journals, trade journals and business news publications. Includes the full-text of the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and the Economist.
Factiva
Factiva is a premier business and general reference resource with a broad collection of sources that reach across disciplines from business and current events to communications and technology, politics, foreign policy, and more. Factiva.com combines more than 28,000 sources to give users access to premium content from 159 countries in 22 languages.
Business Source Elite
Broad scope - includes academic journals, trade publications, magazines, books, market research reports, and product reviews. How to export to RefWorks
 

Industry Research

IBISWorld  - This is our best resource for researching US Industries.  You can search by keywords, industry codes, or by the name of a prominent company in the industry.  Industry reports can help you to identify key success factors, trends, competitors, outlook, and operating conditions. The company your project is focussed on, however, does not neatly fit into any pre-existing industry.  I would suggest checking out the Business Analytics and Business Process Outsourcing reports and trying to gleen insights from what the analysts say.
 

B2B Customer Lists

You can use the following resources to generate lists of companies in a given geographic area.

DemographicsNow
Provides access to demographic data. Drill down to the city or neighborhood level to identify markets and audiences in your community. Ideal for supporting small business and local economic development activities. Thanks to MeL. 
AtoZ Database - Build lists of companies based on geographic location, type, keywords, etc.

Industry Research

IBISWorld  - Use this resource to find reports on the shoe industry.  You'll be able to find reports like Shoe Manufacturing and Online Shoe Sales.  The Footwear Manufacturing in China report could be useful too.

MarketLine  - Another source for industry reports.  Search for "footwear".

Consumer Research

DemographicsNow  - The source contains a lot of demographic information as well as access to the Mosaic Market Segmentation data from Experian and the Simmons National Consumer Survey (try the Apparel Comparison and the Lifestyle Comparison).  

PolicyMap  - Another tool for exploring demographic information.  It uses a heatmap style visualization.

News and Literature Searching

ABI/Inform Complete
Provides access to articles in scholarly, peer-reviewed business journals, trade journals and business news publications. Includes the full-text of the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and the Economist.
Factiva
Factiva is a premier business and general reference resource with a broad collection of sources that reach across disciplines from business and current events to communications and technology, politics, foreign policy, and more. Factiva.com combines more than 28,000 sources to give users access to premium content from 159 countries in 22 languages.

Keyword hints/tips

• Use quotation marks ( " ) around phrases of two or more words:
  • "shoe store"
  • "online sales"
  • "custom manufacturing"
• Use parentheses ( ) around groups of related keywords combined with OR:
  • (sandals OR boots)
  • (rainboots OR "rain boots")