Define the Research Topic and Determine Information Needs

Information Resource Types for Marketing: The Information Matrix

Marketing information - used in environmental scanning - is secured from a wide range of resources, formats, venues, and locations. In addition to using print materials, your assignment may require you to use other kinds of sources such as visual/graphic sources (art prints, slides, maps, videos) numeric sources (statistics, excel spreadsheets), audio sources (audio tape), or electronic sources (listservers, computer files).

The following sample checklist serves as a guide to ensure that a variety of authoritative informational resources are utilized. This checklist can be used for any type of business research including situation analysis, market research, new venture feasibility, and other competitive intelligence gathering projects.

Business magazines & financial newspapers

Examples: Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Business Week, Barron's, Forbes, Fortune
Written by business people for business people. Though many do supply general news information.

Trade journals

Examples: DSN Retailing Today, Adweek, Advertising Age; Information Week, Brand Week, American Demographics, Beverage World, Variety, The Grocer, The Gourmet Retailer,Women's Wear Daily, American Banker, Beverage Isle, Wine Spectator, New Media Age, Hollywood Reporter
Written by and for people within a particular field or industry. Most trade journals include statistics, industry reports, and important industry news.

Scholarly or professional journals

Examples: Journal of Marketing Theory & Practice, Journal of Economics and Business, Journal of Economic Psychology, Journal of Quality Management
Written by experts in the field for a specialized audience.

Government data

Examples: Economic Census, Annual Survey of Manufactures, Federal Reserve Beige Book, NOAA Data
Government data -- both domestic and international -- provides myriad of essential business-related information especially useful for marketing research.

Popular magazines and newspapers

Examples: Newsweek, US News and World Report, People
Popular in nature, written for a general audience, and usually no abstracts, footnotes, bibliographies, etc.

Primary resources

Examples: Diaries, interviews, letters, raw data or articles written at the time of the event.
In most cases you will use secondary sources such as books and articles.

Professional associations and organizations

Examples: American Marketing Association, The Wine Institute, American Advertising Federation, Telecommunications Industry Association, National Sporting Goods Association, American Dairy Association, Biotechnology Industry Organization
Professional associations secure, compile, manage and deliver/sell trade data -- hard to find "inside" information -- for most industries.

Polls and surveys

Examples: Opinion polling such as Gallup, Harris, Roper; ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC; Los Angeles Times, New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal
Polls provide insight -- and data -- into the full spectrum of public interest including politics and government, public institutions, international relations, business, social affairs and consumer behavior and preferences.

Case studies

Examples: Harvard Business School Cases, Corporate Cases, Government Cases
Case study method is a research technique that provides intensive investigation one or a few situations similar to the problem situation. Cases can be secured from a variety of sources including ABI/Inform, Harvard Business School and BusinessCases.org to name a few.

Market research reports

Examples: Investext, Mulltext, Kalorama, MarketResearch.com, Reuters
Market Research Reports are usually very comprehensive reports that examine -- in detail -- key industry indicators such as: market composition; projected market growth; top marketers and brands; competitive situation and profiles; new product trends, consumers; internet sales; and more.

Raw data (proprietary)

Examples: IRI, Datamonitor, ACNielsen, Euromonitor
Proprietary data is very expensive and outside the scope of most academic institutions to secure and make available to students and faculty. Fortunately, many of the Library's databases (e.g., Business and Industry, TableBase) are licensed to include such proprietary data.