MKTG 851 Marketing Strategy: Resources & Context

https://infoguides.rit.edu/prf.php?id=58a0f70c-7cdb-11ed-9922-0ad758b798c3
Last Updated: Feb 19, 2024 11:15 AM

Spring 2021 Ward Class

Introduction to Secondary Data Sources

Information has value. Monetary value. Strategic value.

Knowing about your company, product, industry and customers will help justify strategic choices.

Some information is quantitative like the revenues for a company. This is a dollar figure which can be measured. In the United States, publicly traded companies report this number and anyone can find out the revenues.

Other information is qualitative like why are consumers attracted to a product in one market but not another. Knowing this is not easy. Some companies sell information to help understand why consumers behave in different ways. This information is extremely expensive due to the labor and expertise required to gather it.

RIT Libraries subscribes to some information products to help students practice searching for and working with premium information. Below are some of the products that can help with finding premium marketing information to help form informed decisions and recommendations.


Company Information

Start by visiting your company website to learn everything about the company and the product that the company puts out into the world. Look for press or news releases. Look to see if there is an Investors or Shareholders section. This will be an indicator that the company is public which is an indicator that more info will be released into the world.

Start to build a vocabulary of words and phrases that represent the product. There is no agreed to language across products. Is it mixed drinks or cocktails? That depends on who is writing the text.

Try an advanced Google site search to mine to see if words or phrases show up. Example for the word partners. When using Google add site: to the front of a url to them be able to search for word or "phrases".


Consumer Market Research

Mintel sells consumer market research reports. Businesses can buy individual reports or subscribe to the platform and choose to buy access to different modules. RIT subscribes to the US section of consumer reports only. To better understand the monetary value of these reports take a look here at how much an individual report costs from Mintel. Students at RIT have access to Mintel reports for class projects using the library links below. Keep in mind most library databases are only for class use and cannot be used for other purposes or shared with individuals outside of RIT.

For this project the reports on Dark Spirits or White Spirits are a great starting point. Reports in Mintel are named after general products and not by brand names. Though brand names might show up in a report. Make sure for each report you look at you look at the accompanying Databook found in the DOWNLOAD section.

Next take a look in Passport at  Dashboards for Alcoholic Drinks, the Industry Reports for Alcoholic Drinks. Search for the report called Spirits in the US. Our subscription to Passport includes reports covering most countries. It is a great tool to compare markets in countries. Not every country is covered for every consumer industry. Passport help videos.


News

Searching across newspapers and more can help you find reviews, business news, press releases.


Industry Information


Deeper Consumer Information

Consumer Segments help a marketer understand who your current and potential customers are. Claritas sells access to large datasets that assist with the analysis of consumer demographics, economics, psychographics.

Edit this Guide

Log into Dashboard

Use of RIT resources is reserved for current RIT students, faculty and staff for academic and teaching purposes only.
Please contact your librarian with any questions.

Facebook icon  Twitter icon  Instagram icon  YouTube icon