Introductory Marketing -- Business Administration 322
The purpose of this Library guide is to provide guidance to key Library resources and public Internet sources to complete the semester long marketing plan group project.
Before starting your electronic search you should consider coming to the Library's third floor and consulting with a resource titled International Directory of Company Histories (call number HD 2721 .I583). The set contains 69 volumes. To see if your company is covered (and most major ones are) go to the index of volume 69 (the part at the back of the book that let's you know all companies covered in all volumes). The index will tell you in what volume(s) your company is covered in.
For this project the public Internet is going to be particularly useful, but not the only source you should use. Library databases are covered below. If we were interested in learning more about Nike's marketing strategy and search at http://www.google.com for Nike +"marketing strategy" (the quotation marks around market strategy requires that the phrase be searched and the + requires that the phrase be present in all returned phrases) brings up a wealth of information. Remember, some information will be more reliable. A press release statement from Nike will certainly be a better source than somebody's BLOG. Also, many companies' annual reports are online as well.
A highly recommended starting resource is Hoovers Company Records. Hoover's Company Records is one of the world's leading electronic distributors of information about companies, industries, and the people who lead them. Content in Hoover's Company Records covers more than 40,000 companies, 225,000 key executives, and more than 600 industries.
Another good resources for company financial information and industry news is Lexis Nexis Academic.
Besides the public web you will also want to explore some of the Library databases. Databases contain articles in journals and magazines that are not available (in most cases) for free on the web. Let's use Nike as our example in a database called ABI/INFORM Global. After selecting the link in the previous sentence I suggest that you start by entering the name of your company or organization followed by marketing or marketing strategy if you want to be a bit more specific.
Aside from journals you may also want to do a search in newspapers. The Library subscribes to Proquest Newspapers a database that contains articles from 1000's of news publications from the United States and abroad. Many newspapers have online web sites but note that usually only the last week or two of content is free and then you have to pay. Proquest Newspapers goes back 10-15 years for most publications. I recommend doing the same search as above. Since we are searching so much content you are likely to get a very large number of results. If this is the case you can do two things. First you can arrange the results by relevance. You can also select the advanced search and search for your words in the title of the articles. For example a search for Boeing and marketing strategy brings up over 3000 results, but a search for the word Boeing in the title and the word marketing in the title returns 45.
Company Financial Reports can often be useful because they will contain narrative that talks about the direction the company is headed. Also, company profiles often contain invaluable information for designing a marketing strategy.
For Further Help
If you have any questions don't hesitate to contact a reference librarian. For our contact
information including phone and email connect to the Research Assistance page at: http://www.uwgb.edu/Library/research/assistance.html