Guides: Find Market Research: Start Here

What is market research?

As an essential element of business strategy, market research is the organization of information on consumers (i.e. target market) and their impact on consumerism.
Although the terminology is often conflated, there is a distinction between:
- Marketing research, which is about marketing processes.
- Market research, which is about markets and competition.
Market research is useful because it:
- Allows for understanding of market conditions for an industry or product.
- Provided support for decisions such as advertisement location and format, packaging, pricing and more.
- Determines performance in areas such as brand awareness and customer satisfaction.

How do I find market research?

First determine what type of information you are searching for.
Ask yourself:
- Do I need to know about the broad market for a product or for an industry?
- Would I like to know about the competitors and alternative products?
- Are the general business conditions likely to play a factor?
- Do I need to know anything about the demographics and preferences of consumers?
Use key library databases and web-based sources to understand the factors that impact your company:
- Find market or industry reports to get context about your company’s business context.
- Find country reports to better understand the operating environment and legal regulations for your company.
- Use consumer data from market intelligence and government data sources to determine the key characteristics of your target markets.
- Search the news for information about products, customers and competitors.

What keywords should I use?

"Audience profile"
Audiences
"Behavioral decision theory"
Buying
Clients
"Consumer attitudes"
"Consumer behavior"
"Consumer spending"
Consumers
Customers
Demographics
"Market segmentation"
"Market segments"
"Product choice"
"Social conditions & trends"
"Target marketing"
"Target markets"
"User spending"

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Passport
Use this to access reports for consumer markets, country reports, market and brand share, consumer trends and demographics, and market statistics.

Dates of Coverage: Mid-1990s - Current
Subject Coverage: 27 industries, 200 countries and regions
Statista
Statista provides statistical data on topics such as media, business, politics, society, technology and education. Sources include market reports, trade publications, scientific journals, and government databases. Generates charts and infographics that are downloadable.
Marketline Advantage
Use this to access market reports, five forces analysis, market size and segmentation, competitors/key players, country information, and forecasting data.

Dates of Coverage: Past 2 years - Current
Business Market Research Collection
Use this to access company reports, which provide analysis of company financials, the competitive landscape, and benchmarking statistics.

Dates of Coverage: 1984 - Current
Business Source Complete: Business Searching Interface
Use this to search the Business Source Complete collection for market research reports, company information, SWOT analysis, or country reports.
CANSIM
Use this to access national survey data (including the Canadian Census), to create demographic profiles for your target consumer markets.

Dates of Coverage: 2010 - Current
Mintel

Provides market and consumer data, including consumer perspectives and demographics - for major consumer markets. Geographic coverage includes Canada and US.

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What is market research?

How do I find market research?

What keywords should I use?

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