MKT 802 - Advanced Market Planning

Welcome to the Library Research Guide for MKT 802! This guide is a starting point for your research for two of your major assignments for this course: the Marketing Audit and the Marketing Plan.

Each page focuses on a particular type of business research (consumer, company/competitor, industry, etc.) that will be essential for this course and beyond. At the top of each page, you'll find an outline of what's covered as well as a recommendation for some of the areas of your assignment where these tips and resources may be most useful.

If you're looking for a particular fact, statistic, report, etc. but can only find a paid source in Google, check out the library's resources. We subscribe to comprehensive databases so you don't have to pay. Use this guide to access those resources and discover how they can be used for your assignments.

If you have any research questions along the way, book an appointment with your Marketing librarian.

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For your assignments, you've been asked to do secondary research. To understand secondary research, it helps to understand and distinguish it from primary research.

Primary research

Primary research refers to any type of research where you collect the data yourself using methods like surveys, interviews, or focus groups.

Secondary research

Secondary research refers to finding and synthesizing existing research and data. This can look like reports, data sets, articles, and more.

• Use a combination of library resources and free resources (recommendations throughout this guide)
• Look for information in a variety of sources - industry reports, news articles, journal articles, consumer survey reports, data sets, etc.
• Think about 'who cares' about the information you're looking for - professional association, government agencies, not for profits, certain disciplines - this can give you a direction for where to look
• If you can't find exactly what you're looking for, your research question may be too specific. Reframe and get creative!

Check out our Business Databases Series on YouTube to learn more about the different databases you will use for your research.