Research guide for
70-340 Business Communications, Spring term 2008
Prof. Pierce
First, two preliminaries:
- Get to all books, library services and databases here: www.library.cmu.edu
- If you’re off campus, use this first and follow instructions: http://www.library.cmu.edu/Services/remote.html)
Books on marketing plans
- Find books in collection through CAMEO – use keywords: “internet marketing,” “marketing management,” marketing and planning,” etc.
- Examples: Powerhouse Marketing Plans, Marketing Your Retail Store in the Internet Age, Marketing Plans: How to Prepare Them, How to Use Them, etc.
Background on an industry
Demographics and market information
Background on companies
- Hoover's Online - includes U.S. public and private, and international companies; company leadership, history and description, financials, products, etc.
- Business & Company Resource Center - company chronologies, histories and journal articles grouped by business functions like marketing, R&D, strategy, etc.
News sources about companies and industries:
(There is considerable overlap among these, but also many unique items in each one.)
- Proquest – wide-ranging news database containing many smaller databases within it - a great place to search for local reporting on a company, and uncovering what competitors are doing.
- Business & Company Resource Center – in addition to news and journal articles, you can find here company histories, analyst reports, industry overviews and research reports.
- Lexis-Nexis Academic– has wide-ranging international, national and local news, and also special sections: mergers and acquisitions, biographical background on individuals and legal cases.
Books about companies or industries:
- Cameo will turn up excellent books on whole industries and important companies.
- You can get a book delivered to CMU from another library as well – use ILLiad and EZ Borrow
Identifying competitors and/or potential corporate customers
Other useful resources for marketing planning
- Mplans.com - examples of marketing plans
- Outline for marketing plan, and samples from Royal Bank of Canada, and U.S. Small Business Administration
- Ad rates and audience profiles – each magazine has a “media kit,” i.e. Atlantic Monthly. Find your magazines in database - Ulrichsweb.com.
- Ads as percent of sales, from www.adage.com – (search for “advertising as percent of sales” – free registration needed) and in Financial Studies of the Small Business (Hunt Ref
HD2346 .U5 F55A)
- Broadcasting & Cable Yearbook 2008 (Hunt Ref HE8689 .B77) – contact information for TV and radio stations
- www.clickz.com – interactive marketing statistics and research
- Customer polls: look at databases, using “poll” as a search term, i.e. movies and poll
Financial information
- Financial Studies of the Small Business (Hunt Ref HD2346 .U5 F55A) - has small business budget figures and ratios
- Industry ratios and benchmarks from
- RMA annual statement studies (Hunt Ref HF5681 .B2 R6)
- Dun & Bradstreet Key Business Ratios
- Bizstats.com
- Balance sheets and income statements of all public companies from Securities & Exchange Commission website – EDGAR search.
Evaluating Websites and Citing Your Sources:
We’re here to help! Hunt Library Reference Desk: (412) 268-2442; huntref@andrew.cmu.edu
Or, contact me directly:
Roye Werner , Business and Economics Librarian, rwerner@andrew.cmu.edu, (412) 268-2453