Research Guides: MKTG 4721: Advertising and Marketing Communications (Marat): Home

Research Guide

Finding Books
Business Periodical Databases
Other Periodical Databases
Financial Databases
Marketing Databases
Statistical Databases
Other Databases
Search Engines

LSBE indoors

Finding Books

UMD Catalog (Advanced)
Search for books, government documents, reference books, videos and periodicals by title using the Advanced Search of the UMD Online Catalog.

WorldCat
Find over 450 MILLION books, government documents, videos found in thousands of libraries. THIS IS OUR BEST SOURCE FOR FINDING AND ORDERING MATERIALS THROUGH OUR FREE INTERLIBRARY LOAN SERVICE. Interlibrary Loans often require 1-3 weeks or more to fulfill.

Google Book Search
With this exciting and very new service, search for any keywords and discover which books are highly ranked for them. You may be able to find and read a few pages of the the scanned book in context.

All-University Catalog Book Search
and search all U of MN campuses just as you would our campus. You can mark "Get-It" for any circulating book held at any campus, including UMD, and it will be pulled and held for you at our Circulation desk. You will be notified by e-mail. UMD requests are usually filled within one day and requests from other campuses can take 2 to 4 working days. This is faster than Inter Library Loan as there is no intermediary processing your request. This is available for faculty, staff and students. FREE! All University of Minnesota book resources are now at your finger tips!!

Business Periodical Databases

Business Insights: Essentials
Company & industry news linked to electronic reference books. Contains histories, market shares, rankings, industry surveys, and investment reports.

Business Source Premier
Full text of over 3,400 business periodicals. This is our largest business database. It provides our best access to scholarly journals. It also has special reports, including "SWOT" analysis. Note the green "company profiles" tab, which will allow you to access over 5,000 MarketLine Company Profiles.

Google Scholar
Indexes scholarly literature. Strong in the areas of medicine, engineering, the sciences, and business. Provides relevancy rankings based on the citation patterns of the articles. Sources are linked to UMD Library electronic holdings via "Find It."

Use it to find industry information, trends, case studies, and examples of problems and solutions.

ProQuest News
Contains the full text of newspaper articles from over 350 titles going back over 30 years. ProQuest News provides our only source of electronic access to the Wall Street Journal. This is a Key Source of newspaper information. Use it to find industry information, trends, case studies, and examples of problems and solutions.

Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition)
Contains the full-text Wall Street Journal which has extensive coverage of stock markets, finance, investments and business-oriented news. This database version from Proquest News includes business news and analysis, company news, regular columns, special reports, articles on the national and world economy, editorials and opinion, interviews, and Reuters news stories. Excludes charts and free standing tabular data, such as stock tables and other exchange listings.
Full text coverage: Jan 2, 1984 - current

WestLaw News

Westlaw News contains more than 4,900 News and business information publications. This is a Key Source of news and trade publication information.

Use it to find industry information, products, trends, case studies, and examples of problems and solutions.

Other Periodical Databases

Duluth News Tribune
A searchable archive of the Duluth News-Tribune, with complete full-text content of local and regional news, including community events, schools, politics, government policies, cultural activities, local businesses, business people, state industries, and economic issues. Covers 11/1995 - present.

MasterFile Premier
Contains popular and general interest magazines covering a broad range of disciplines. Many business topics can be researched here as well. Over 2600 titles are indexed, with over 1950 titles available in full text.

Financial Databases

BizMiner
BizMiner offers industry financial analysis benchmarks for over 5,000 lines of business and industry market trends on thousands more. Their market analysis reports are available at the national and local levels down to the zip code. Bizminer is a great resource to use when developing business plans, or for any sort of entrepreneurship initiatives where you need to measure peer performance in an industry. Types of reports:

-Industry Financial Profiles
- U.S. & Local Market Research Reports (includes business failure rates)
- Area Demographic Profiles
- Sole Proprietor/Startup Profit & Loss
- Local Market Vitality Profiles

BizMiner FAQ's

BizMiner Resources

BizMiner Tutorial Handout

BizMiner Video Tutorials

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3ZuyjAAXis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa9S8g_TwDM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se_jfpDiLGE

Mergent Online
Provides business and financial information for 23,000 U.S. and international companies. Financials for 15 years, balance sheets, income statements "as reported" and can be downloaded to spreadsheet. Includes company overviews, histories financial ratios, and much more. Mergent Online IS OUR BEST SOURCE FOR COMPANY ANNUAL REPORTS. How to compare companies in Mergent Online. Video.

MorningStar
Provides independent investment analysis of 1500 stocks and 2000 mutual funds. Includes current analyst reports for both particular companies and funds with an eye to what is happening in the industry. This is a highly regarded and unique source of financial information.

NetAdvantage
Contains large Industry Surveys (and overviews of markets) for leading companies in 52 industries. Search by company or industry. Standard & Poor’s stock analysis is available for public companies.

Value Line
Provides the current relative rating for performance and safety together with estimated yields, the latest earnings, dividends and p/e data, guidance on current investment policy, analysis and forecasts of the national economy and the stock market. Value Line offers views on the economy and the stock market as well as on stocks of special interest. This is a highly regarded and unique source of financial information. (HOW TO READ A VALUE LINE REPORT)

Marketing Databases

Business Analyst Online

This is a VERY Key Source.

Business Analyst Online (BAO) Utilizing extensive demographic, consumer spending, and business data, BAO provides detailed information and insights about consumers, their lifestyles and buying behavior, and businesses in your market area. With BAO, you can:

Analyze trade areas, competition, supply and demand
Evaluate sites
Determine population within a specific drive-time or distance
Identify and segment customers
Reach your customers more effectively
Explore markets in the US
Click here to create an account and start using. https://www.d.umn.edu/~jvileta/FAQs/bao-link.html

To start using this database, I recommend viewing this short video:

http://help.arcgis.com/en/businessanalyst/online/videos/quickstart.html

FAQ's are here:

http://help.arcgis.com/en/businessanalyst/online/faqs/index.html

If you create an account properly, reports are generated at no charge...if you see a request for payment, you did not created your account properly.

IBIS World Industry Reports

IBIS provides Industry market research reports on over 1,300 U.S. industries, plus Canada Industries, China Industries, and Global Industries, Each IBISWorld report includes:

An overview of the industry structure
The current industry performance and key external drivers
The industry outlook and lifecycle
Products and markets, including the supply chain, major markets and international trade
Competitive landscape and market share
Major companies
Key statistics and data.

You can find reports easily by browsing by industry sector, by SIC or NAICS codes, or or simply searching by keyword.

Mintel Reports
Database containing over 600 consumer product and service marketing reports. Most are US and UK based. They are full of amazing detail and analysis. This is one of our better sources of consumer psychographic information. Note that first time users will have to create a free account. This is a Key Source. Also, search for "Marketing to" for target market reports.

Reference USA
Directory of U.S. business. Lists size of company, year established, type of business, credit rating, top personnel, yearly sales and more. Data can be searched by name of company, name of officers, geographic area, SIC, size, revenue or any combination.

ReferenceUSA FAQ and Tutorials

How to Use ReferenceUSA

https://www.google.com/#q=how+to+use+referenceUSA

This is a Key Source for competitive analysis and finding customers.

Sports Market Analytics (formerlySBRnet)
Sports Market Analytics(Sports Business Research Network) provides resources related to the business of sports including industry-developed market research, government statistics, facility reports and news, international market publications, customized research, and directories.

Ulrichsweb
Ulrichsweb, formerly known as Ulrichs Periodical Directory, now contains nearly a quarter-million serial records, including: academic and scholarly publications, consumer magazines, electronic publications, monographic series, newsletters, newspapers, trade publications, 'zines, and many other types of serial publications. Contact information and advertising rates are also provided. This source can help in building a print ad campaign.

Statistical Databases

Statista NEW!! AND A KEY SOURCE OF INFORMATION
features 1.5 million statistics on over 80,000 topics from over 18,000 sources, categorized into 21 market sectors, on over 600 industries. This data is pulled from market research reports, trade publications, scientific journals, and government databases. Note that search results can be individual statistics or larger "dossier" reports. For each statistic, Statista provides available meta data including source, release date, number of respondents, and any other relevant details. Content is geared towards business and marketing statistical needs, with a focus on current (not historical) statistics. Ready made tables are available for download as images to insert into presentations. Data is downloadable in PPT, XLS, and PNG.

Other Databases

Oxford English Dictionary Online
Considered to be the authority on the evolution of the English language. It is a guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over 500,000 words, both present and past.

Wikipedia
Wikipedia includes information more often associated with almanacs, gazetteers, and specialist magazines, as well as coverage of current events. It has over 6 million entries, and is constantly growing. Many articles are long, detailed, with sources and related links. Wikipedia has been controversial because of its open collaborative nature, however it has received good marks in recent scholarly journals. This may be a good place to get an overview of business related definitions, topics or issues.

This is a good place to get an overview of business related definitions, topics or issues. The Wikipedia can help you to find and understand the “keywords” you will need to search our library’s many databases . You may not want to cite the Wikipedia as a source, but it may lead you to sources you can cite. Learn how to make the best use of this wonderful resource.

Search Engines

Google
The first place to go to search the web.

Bing
Another major unique search engines

Other Suggested Websites

Small Business Marketing Fundamentals
An instructive video from Lynda.com

Business Reference FAQ's
This webpage points to sources to answer dozens of common business research questions.

NAICS Classification and NAICS Search

Social Media Marketing
This webpage has links to sites and books that can help you to develop your Social Media Marketing campaign. This is a Key Source.

Guerrilla Marketing
This webpage has a comprehensive list of Guerrilla Marketing books available in our UMD Library. They can provide you with many creative ideas for your marketing plans. This is a Key Source for local inexpensive marketing campaigns.

Questionnaires, Surveys, and Focus Groups
Students may want to consider doing primary research on a given business topic. Primary research allows you to discover and create current information on a specific or localized topic. We have many books in our Library that can help you better understand how to do this work. This could be a Key Source.

Marketing Books
This webpage lists hundreds of recent books available in our UMD Library on 28 marketing topics. This is a Key Source for creative ideas.

Presentation Skills
If you are giving classroom presentations, this webpage will help you find books and sources to make them the best possible. This is a Key Source.

Citing Your Sources
If you are writing a Marketing Plans Report, you will need to cite your sources. This webpage provides examples in APA Style. This is a Key Source. It is vital to document and list your research efforts.

Updated September 7, 2020.

Kathryn A. Martin Library

MKTG 4721: Advertising and Marketing Communications (Marat)

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