LibGuides: Marketing: A Guide to Library Research: Overview

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Marketing Research

Marketing research, as defined by the American Marketing Association (AMA), is the function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information that is used to:

Identify and define marketing opportunities and problems
Generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions
Monitor marketing performance
Improve understanding of marketing as a process

This guide is intended to help you begin your research paper and/or project in the field of marketing and direct you to a variety of resources from the Thompson Library related to marketing:

Books and reference sources (print and online) that may be useful starting points for research.
Article Databases (scholarly journals) covering your topic (over 75,000 journals)
Databases covering Company Information, Financials and Statistics
Industry Information and Statistics
Demographics information.
Search tips for the library catalog and article databases

You can begin your research with any of these, or with Search All below.

Frequently Used Databases

Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
1886-present. Case studies, company profiles, conference proceedings, country reports, financial data, industry reports, investment research reports, market research reports, monographs, SWOT analyses, trade journals. All aspects of business.
Due to license restrictions, access to the 500 most popular articles from Harvard Business Review is read-only--no printing, downloading, or direct linking to these 500 articles is permitted. All other HBR articles are fully accessible to all current U-M students, faculty, and staff with no such restrictions.

Use Policy: When using material from this database in reports and presentations, vendor contract requirements dictate that you must include the phrase, "Used with permission of EBSCO Business Source Complete."
CIA World Factbook This link opens in a new window
Background historical, demographic, and other information on every country in the world as well as most territories.
Data Axle Reference Solutions This link opens in a new window
Business & residential addresses, and some related statistical data.
eMarketer This link opens in a new window
Market research information about the Internet, e-business, online marketing, and emerging technologies. Please log out when finished; failing to log out may prevent others from using this database.
Aggregated from over 1,700 sources. Includes analyst reports, daily research articles, and e-business and online.
Help guide (pdf)
Video tutorial
Gale Business: Insights This link opens in a new window
Information on companies globally, including SWOT analyses, financial statements, case studies, and articles from academic journals, trade magazines, news outlets, and more.
Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
Current and historical (past 15 years) firm descriptions, statistics, financial information, annual reports, mergers, acquisitions, disposals, joint ventures, long-term debt, bond ratings, capital stock, and insider trading for US and foreign companies. YouTube tutorial available
Provides access to current and historical financial information on 15,000 US and 20,000 foreign companies, both active and inactive, including firm description, statistics, and financial information, as well as annual reports. Mergers, acquisitions, disposals, joint ventures, long-term debt, bond ratings, capital stock and insider trading are also provided in the company records. Historical data is available for the past 15 years. Company reports and financials can be exported to Excel.

Includes Mergent Horizon data about a firm's products; its relationships with its major customers, suppliers, and partners; its competitors; its financials; and the industry space in which it operates.

Marketing: A Guide to Library Research

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Business-Related Subject Guides

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Frequently Used Databases