This guide has been created to highlight resources most commonly used by those researching marketing including such areas as: consumer behavior, branding, advertisement creation and evaluation, consumer relations, and business communication. Those interested in the marketing of products within a specific industry should also use the databases focused on that individual industry.
Getting started with academic research | Overview of marketing | Recommended databases
Mintel offers over 900 market research reports focused on the broad categories of: beauty and personal, drink, electronics, food and foodservice, health and medical, health and wellness, household, lifestyles, retailing and travel. The reports can be searched for product, brand name or keyword. Mintel also offers news articles related to marketing, reports of company management changes, and company profiles.
When logging into the database, you must accept conditions of use and login with your email and a password that you create. You must use your Virginia Tech email for this system. Limited to simultaneous users.
SRDS Media Solutions provides media information: advertising rates, dates, and contact data with direct links to media kits and audit statements. It includes the six components listed in My Services. Some data can be exported as a spreadsheet.
MarketLine provides searchable company, industry, and country information. Includes industry profiles (with size, segmentation, and competitive analysis); company profiles of 50,000 public and private companies; country profiles; three databases (base drivers, consumer markets, financial deals); as well as news, comment, and analysis.
IBISWorld provides two types of business reports:
Industry Market Research: Reports (PDF) on over 700 US industries arranged by 5-digit NAICS code. Typically 25-50 pages in length with executive summaries, these reports are updated regularly.
Business Environment: Data and analysis (PDF and Word) on 200+ economic and demographic statistics, categorized in 7 'environments' that surround the economy. These 2-3 page reports are available on around 300 key business environment indicators.
ABI/Inform indexes citations, abstracts, and full text news articles, market and SWOT analyses, industry reports, country reports, downloadable data sets, dissertations, business cases, working papers, annual reports from North American companies, and company profiles and histories. You can limit searches to peer-reviewed journals. Full text provided in HTML and PDF. 1971-present.
Factiva provides full-text news articles and business/industry information from newswires, newspapers, business and industry magazines, television and radio transcripts, financial reports, and photos from news services. Most content is HTML, though other formats are available for export. News sources 1979-present; financial data 1960s-present.