Marketing Information

A Strategic Guide for Business and Finance Libraries

Michael R. Oppenheim, Wendy Diamond Mulcahy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781135185589
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Help your patrons create effective marketing research plans with this sourcebook!

Marketing Information: A Strategic Guide for Business and Finance Libraries identifies and describes secondary published sources of information for typical marketing questions and research projects. Experts in the field offer a guided tour of the signposts and landmarks in the world of marketing informationhighlighting the most important features. This extensive guide serves as a strategic bibliography, covering over 200 printed books and serials, subscription databases, and free Web sites.

Marketing Information contains several useful features, including:

• basic bibliographic descriptions with publisher location, frequency, format, price, and URL contact information for each source listed
• special text boxes with practical tips, techniques, and short cuts
• an alphabetical listing of all source titles
• an index to subjects and sources

Unlike some research guides that recommend only esoteric and expensive resources, this book offers a well-balanced mix of the 'readily available' and the costly and/or not widely available, so that researchers who lack immediate access to a large university business research collection still has a core of accessible materials that can be found in a public library or on the Web.

This book will help you provide top-notch service to clients such as:

• marketing instructors in developing assignments and other curricula which incorporate a business information literacy component
• students whose assignments require library or other research to identify and use key marketing information tools
• entrepreneurs and self-employed business people writing marketing plans, business plans, loan applications, and feasibility plans
• marketers who wish to consult and/or incorporate standard secondary sources in their marketing plans or research projects
• experienced market researchers who need relevant secondary sources as a preliminary step to surveys, questionnaires, and focus groups
• reference librarians who advise these groups in academic, public, or corporate library settings
• collection development librarians selecting material for public, academic, and special libraries

Marketing Information is a practical tool for marketers and for those studying to be marketers. The authors are seasoned academic business librarians who have helped doctoral candidates, faculty researchers, MBA and undergraduate students, marketing professionals, entrepreneurs, and business managers all find the right information. Now, in this resource, they come together to help you!

Part I

Introduction

Chapter 1

Introduction to Sources and Strategies for Research on Marketing

Topics

Overview of Business Information

Business Libraries

Research Strategies

Copyright and Fair Use

Staying Current

Guides to Marketing Information Sources

Dictionaries

Encyclopedias

Finding Books and Articles

Searching Periodical Databases

General Business Periodical Databases

Specialized Business Search Systems

Statistics and Tables

World Wide Web

The Web and Professional Associations

Videos and DVDs

Classic Texts and Other Scholarly Materials

Sources

Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources

Marketing Information: A Professional Guide

Where to Go Who to Ask

Blackwell Encyclopedic Dictionary of Marketing

Marketing: The Encyclopedic Dictionary

Dictionary of Marketing and Advertising

The Marketing Glossary

IEBM Encyclopedia of Marketing

Beacham’s Marketing Reference

ABI/Inform

Business Source Premier

Business & Industry

Business Periodicals

PROMT

Factiva

LexisNexis

Dialog

Datastar

.xls

World Advertising Research Center

TableBase

Statistical Reference Index

Marketing Classics: A Selection of Influential Articles

Marketing Science Institute. Working Paper Series

This chapter provides the foundation for the more specialized chapters that follow. It covers such basic reference tools as information guides, bibliographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, periodical indexes, and the World Wide Web, and also explains fundamental research concepts and skills. It is assumed that users of this guide are “online” and “connected” to the World Wide Web. If not, it is possible to use public libraries or most local academic libraries to gain access. Many provide terminals and network connections, as well as librarians who can explain the basics of logging on, entering Web addresses (“URLs”), and searching. Increasingly, public libraries also offer workshops and seminars to teach these skills.

Marketing is a complex set of specific business functions, a strategy for profit making companies, a promotional tool for all kinds of organizations, and an academic discipline. Because it is all these things, and more, it has many definitions. The official definition used by the American Marketing Association (AMA) is: “Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals.” This definition first appeared in Marketing News on March 1, 1985, and was adopted by AMA’s Board of Directors and published in its Dictionary of Marketing Terms, 2nd edition, edited by Peter D. Bennett (AMA 2002).

In the IEBM International Encyclopedia of Marketing, editor Michael J. Baker conceptualizes marketing as a “business philosophy, guiding an organization’s direction and development, and as a business function, enhancing both efficiency and effectiveness in the execution of an organization’s mission.” Marketing is “a concept that is concerned with the creation of mutually satisfying exchange relationships” (Baker 1999, xii). Modern business has evolved from a traditional, company-centric focus on production and sales to a more customer-centric one, whereby companies seek to fulfill both explicit and implicit needs and wants. This customer relationship is the arena of marketing.

Modern marketing’s strategic emphasis is expressed in the well-known “Four Ps” of the marketing mix. These define the primary functional areas as Promotion (communication with customers), Product (fulfilling needs and wants of customers), Pricing (exchanging with customers), and Place (distributing to customers). The complexity of modern marketing is revealed by the refraction of each of the “Ps” into multiple aspects and subtopics. “Promotion” includes everything from media buying to couponing to public relations; “place” includes everything from supply chain management to direct mail to e-commerce retailing; and “pricing” and “product management” encompass activities to maximize results with niche markets and relationships with customers. Each marketing specialty area has its own information needs, a body of literature, and a set of basic tools to which to refer.

TIP: “The Four Ps of the Marketing Mix”

The first use of the phrase was in 1960 by E. Jerome McCarthy in Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach (Homewood, IL: Irwin). Neil H. Borden published an expanded checklist version in “The Concept of the Marketing Mix,” published in the Journal of Advertising Research in 1964 (Borden 1964). Since that time, the Four Ps, Promotion, Product, Pricing, and Place, have been used as a paradigmatic definition of marketing in textbooks and teaching. The Four Ps have been expanded to include additional components, and current authors may speak of the Six Ps, Eight Ps (“process,” “productivity”), the Rs (“relationships”) and the Cs (“customer care”). Underscoring the complexity of today’s marketing environment, these additional elements incorporate still greater focus on customers, service, and relationships (Kotler and Armstrong 2001, 68).

Most marketing specialties will require research, information, data, and analysis for decision-making and planning. Marketing research, like other categories of business research, can be a challenging and perplexing activity. Although it is not brain surgery or rocket science, sometimes finding the right answer can seem as urgent as a life-and-death situation, or as mysterious as sending a huge machine into outer space. After all, profits–the literal lifeblood of business enterprise–depend on it. The catch phrase “time is money” is never truer than when dealing with any kind of business information. Although timing can seem to be paramount, finding the right information is the key challenge. This book is an information guide that will both save you time and lead you to the right information, thereby improving your business decisions, planning, and problem-solving.

Overview of Business Information

An understanding of the special forms and structure of business information will promote the effective utilization of it, whether for a marketing plan, term paper, competitive analysis, or any other research project. The very fact that business information is used as a profit-making tool is the driving force behind many publications. Often information is available simply because it is so saleable and desirable. As Michael Lavin puts it,

Literally, any type of business information can be published, no matter how unlikely. Since information can be the key to business success, managers are usually willing to pay for it when the need arises …. Never assume information is unavailable just because its existence seems unreasonable. (Lavin 1992, 6-7)

However, as Lavin also points out, some information is proprietary, very expensive, and available only to bona-fide subscribers, citing two well-known examples in the Arbitron radio and television ratings and the Multiple Listing Service used by realtors (Lavin 1992, 5). Some information can also be so valuable that it is effectively unavailable to the average researcher. It helps to ask oneself: Why would someone provide a certain piece of information? What is its value to someone using it to make money? Is it particularly time- or labor-intensive to gather, valuable for profit making purposes, and/or competitive positioning? If so, it is likely to be expensive. At the other end of the spectrum, if it is likely to be useful to a government agency for economic or regulatory reasons, then it may be available at no charge.

The foregoing factors have important implications for the ease of locating and using business information. First and foremost, there is a huge volume of it. Second, its sources are fragmented, ranging from government agencies, to commercial publishers, to professional associations, to other advocacy groups. Frustratingly, the most valuable information may be proprietary, or at the least, very expensive (Butler and Diamond 2001).

Generally, business information is most useful when it is current and timely. There is a lifecycle to business information that dictates the type of “packet” in which it appears. Thinking about information in terms of its stage in the life cycle can be helpful in discovering where to look for a particular item. Both timeliness and reliability have a high value, and to some extent there is an inverse relationship between these two dimensions. At the earliest stages of the information life cycle, such as raw news and press releases, timeliness presents the greatest value but reliability may be low. With the Internet, raw data are disseminated continuously and easily but, as most people understand, with questionable reliability. As a piece of information moves along its life cycle, there is time for discussion and verification. At the next stage, the information appears in business newspapers, magazines, and newsletters, with added commentary and data (Ojala 1996, 79). Eventually, it may end up in a book, scholarly journal article, or published in a conference proceeding.

Another form of raw data is produced by government agencies. These sources are considered most reliable and authoritative, but they are often published in formats with limited features and convenience. Because almost all government information is in the public domain, it is common for private publishers to re-publish it with “value-added” features. Scholarly publications, such as journal articles and conference proceedings, are also known for high authority value, but they are generally lower on the timeliness scale. Books take the longest to research and produce, but they can range in authority depending on whether the work may be scholarly, published by a well-reputed firm, authored by an expert, or other factors.

It is important to note that all information “packages”–raw news, press releases, newspaper and magazine articles, proceedings, government reports, scholarly journal articles, and even books–may appear both in print and online. It is not the physical format per se that is crucial, but rather whether a format is appropriate for the information being conveyed.

The forms of business information “packages” are diverse. Though most are not unique to business, some forms are more common than they may be in other fields. The familiar, prosaic list is a basic form of information that is very commonly used in business. Directories of companies are a prime example of lists, and there are directory titles covering virtually every specialty. Because business is a competitive field, rankings, a form of list that offers a comparative measurement dimension, have a prominent role. The index number is another typical quantitative form which represents a “measure of relative value compared with a base quantity” (Shim and Siegel 1995, 180). The Consumer Price Index, issued by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, is the most well-known example, but marketers often use index numbers to express a relationship between ranked items, such as sales potential in geographic regions.

Qualitative, narrative forms that blend analysis, a...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Where to Find It: A Checklist for Typical Marketing Concepts
• Part I Introduction
• Part II Researching the Competitive Environment
• Part III Research about Customers
• Part IV Research for the Promotional Strategy
• Part V Researching the Sales Strategy
• Part VI Researching Price, Packaging, and Place
• Part VII Special Topics
• Appendix Selected Glossaries
• Title Index
• Subject Index