RCSC 451 - Marketing Strategy - Library Research Guide
Assignment 1: The Macro Environment
Demographic
See the Market Research Guide for suggested sources for learning about demographic trends.
In addition, you may find useful articles related to your company/product and demographic trends in the publication American Demographics. This periodical is indexed in the database ABI/Inform.
Economic
STAT-USA
Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is a database of economic and trade data and reports, including Consumer Price Index, Producer Price Index, interest rates, housing starts, and more. After logging in to STAT-USA, select the State of the Nation section.
Census Economic Briefing Room
Includes links to reports and data such as wholesale trade, construction spending, retail sales, and more.
Standard & Poor's Trends & Projections - call # HG4921 .S681 Main Reference
Monthly newsletter that includes analysis and data related to the economy. Includes data on consumer confidence, retail activity, consumer and producer prices and other economic indicators.
Natural
A key way to find information on companies is to read through articles from business periodicals (business newspapers, business magazines, business journals). Often, this is the only way to find some types of information, and you may need to read through many articles to find the information you need.
To learn about cost and availability of natural resources needed, as well as the company's role in pollution and conservation, search for articles in:
Business & Company Resource Center
Database of company and industry profiles and articles from business periodicals. Includes company history and chronology. Mostly full-text. Do an Advanced Search with your company name and the search terms pollution or conservation or environmental.
ABI/Inform
Database of mostly full-text articles from nearly 1800 business periodicals. Try a search on the company name in the Company search field and pollution or conservation or environmental in the Subject search field.
Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe
Database of full-text articles from general newspapers and business periodicals. When you enter the database, choose the Business section on the left side of the page. Then do a Business News search with the company name and search terms such as pollution, conservation, or environmental.
Commodity Prices - call # HB235.U6 F74 1991 Info Commons Ref
This reference book is an index to sources that list prices of various commodities. Depending on the products your company produces, this is a way to find out the price of certain raw materials/natural resources.
Technological
Again, you'll want to search for articles in business publications to learn about product technology as relates to your company:
Business & Company Resource Center
Do a Company Search with your company name, then select your company. Most companies will have a company profile with links to articles about the company, under Articles about this company.
Take a look at articles under the Operations & Technology and Products & Services subheadings.
ABI/Inform
Database of mostly full-text articles from nearly 1800 business periodicals. Try a search on the company name in the Company search field and products or technolog* or innovation in the Subject search field.
Political-Legal
Proposed laws are called bills. To locate current bills, search in the Bills Section of the CIS Congressional Universe database.
You may also find information about laws that may affect your industry/company/product by searching for articles in the other business databases.
Federal, state, and local government agencies may be identified through the government Web site FirstGov.
Social-Cultural
The Consumer Confidence Index and the Consumer Sentiment Index will give you a general idea of the public's attitudes toward the economy, business, and products.
Consumer Confidence Index
The Consumer Confidence Index "reflects consumer attitudes toward the economy, local job markets, and their own financial condition." (from Frumkin, Norman. Guide to Economic Indicators, 3rd ed. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2000)
The Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) is based on 1985=100. It is useful to look at the CCI in relation to previous months, rather than the absolute number.
The current month's Consumer Confidence Index, as well as a brief analysis and explanation of how it is calculated, is available from The Conference Board. Data from previous months may be found in Standard & Poor's Trends and Projections (call# HG4921 .S681 Main Ref.)
Consumer Sentiment Index
The Consumer Sentiment Index "reflects consumer attitudes toward the economy, their own financial condition, and perceptions about buying big-ticket durabale goods." (from Frumkin, Norman. Guide to Economic Indicators, 3rd ed. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2000)
The Consumer Sentiment Index (CSI) is based on 1966=100. It is useful to look at the CSI in relation to previous months, rather than the absolute number.
The current Consumer Sentiment Index, along with reports and other data related to consumer attitude, is available from the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers.
Consumer attitudes
For consumer attitude about specific types of products, you may need to search for articles in business publications. For example, in Business & Company Resource Center, search the Articles section by industry name (e.g., furniture industry), then look at the articles by subdivision and see if there are any articles under the heading "public opinion." Or do an Advanced Search with keywords like consumer surveys or household surveys and the name of your product.
You may also get a sense of consumer attitudes by looking at other polls and surveys found in the database, Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe. Choose Reference, then Polls & Surveys.