category
Read industry reports and market research reports to gain a basic understanding of how your target category operates, who the major players are, what competitive forces come into play and how heavily the industry is regulated. There may not be a industry or market research report that exclusively focuses on your product category. Reports that are broader in scope or adjacent may still provide useful insights.
Some terms relevant to the Comcast xFi Pods include wifi extender, connected home, smart home, and more broadly consumer electronics, internet of things or communication/telecommunications equipment.
Update industry and market research reports by searching business news.
Trade and professional associations are another good way to learn about developments in a particular category. Some limit access to members, but almost all provide publically facing analysis about the advocacy work they do. Industry reports often list important associations. You can also find them by doing a google search for the keywords + association site:.org.
Gartner Limitations on Use
Features analyses, forecasts, and market statistics on IT products and services.
Subscription courtesy of Villanova UNIT.
Limitations on Use:
Authorized users (on and off campus) limited to current Villanova students, faculty and staff.
Euromonitor (Passport)
Mintel Insights & Analytics Limitations on Use
Offers product and industry market research reports covering U.S. and international marketplaces. Each report combines data and analysis of the competitive landscape, supply chain, market-share size and trends, and consumer profiles. Analytics advance search monitors new product activity in consumer packaged goods markets worldwide.
Limitations on Use:
Authorized users (on and off campus) limited to current Villanova students, faculty and staff.
IBISWorld
Provides access to U.S. and global industry market research reports.
Statista
Provides curated compilations of statistics and data without much of the analysis expected from an industry report.
customer analysis
Market research reports published on categories or customer groups are a great place to begin the customer analysis. Census data and commercial surveys are also information rich.
Catalyst MRI Simmons Tutorial
Provides access to the results of a National Consumer Study (most recent studies embargoed) encompassing demographics, lifestyle statements, and consumer behaviors. Supports the creation of custom cross tabulations or quick reports.
Explore Census Data
Data-Planet (Sage)
ESRI Business Analyst Online Tutorial Access Instructions
Provides geographic analysis tools. Includes demographic, consumer spending, and business data.
Access courtesy of the Department of Geography & the Environment.
To create your Villanova SSO account, click on the option Your ArcGIS organization’s URL and type villanova (right before .maps.arcgis.com), then Continue. On the next page, click Villanova SSO. The familiar Villanova log in page will appear.
Pew Research : Internet & American Life
Independent research on the social impact of the internet.
Statista Global Consumer Survey Guide
Offers step by step instructions for querying the Global Consumer Survey.
eMarketer
Offers data and reports related to digital marketing. Topics include advertising spending, digital marketing, social media, media usage, e-commerce, email marketing, and device usage. Coverage is global.
competitor Analysis
Competitors will likely be included with the client presentation, in market research reports, the business news and web searching.
The competitor SWOT analysis should strike a balance between evaluating the parent company and particular product services. For parent company analysis use the databases listed below, the company web sites, social media, and SEC filings. Note D&B Hoovers and Marketline often include company SWOT analysis.
For a SWOT analysis on the product/service level do a deep dive into the product/service web sites, social media and business news.
D&B Hoovers
Offers public and private company and industry information including company profiles, market research reports from Marketline, Freedonia, Euromonitor, and RMA updated with recent news, executive profiles, and analyst reports.
MarketLine Company Profiles (EBSCO)
Offers detailed reports on U.S. and foreign companies in a wide range of industries. These reports provide a description of the business, company history, key personnel, products, services, and competitors. MarketLine Industry Reports are available from the D&B Global Business Browser database.
Mergent Online Limitations on Use
Provides detailed financial statements for U.S. and international public and private companies, including SEC filings and current and historical annual reports for U.S. and international public companies. Data can be downloaded in a variety of formats. Also includes country profiles.
Access limited to 4 simultaneous users.
NetAdvantage (Standard & Poor's Capital IQ)
Offers market information, company quotes, equity index information, industry information (including the S&P Industry Surveys), and economic data.
Morningstar Investing Center
Contains information on more than 30,000 stocks, mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds. Provides independent analysis, industry information, stock charts, portfolio building tools, and web-based educational tutorials.
marketing Plan
Use the databases below to find best practices, benchmarks and cases to support your marketing plan.
WARC
Offers information on global advertising and marketing trends including case studies, articles, reports, opinion pieces, and expenditure data. Formerly known as World Advertising Research Center.
Falvey Book Search
Search for practice oriented ebook on marketing approaches.
Advertising Insights (Kantar Media)
Creates custom reports on advertising expenditures across media channels including TV, magazines, newspapers, radio, outdoor and internet displays on the level of industries, categories, brands, products, and advertisers going back to 2017. Formerly known as Ad$pender.
eMarketer
Offers data and reports related to digital marketing. Topics include advertising spending, digital marketing, social media, media usage, e-commerce, email marketing, and device usage. Coverage is global.
Catalyst MRI Simmons Tutorial
Find out which media to reach your target customer on.
Advertising Age Datacenter (AdAge) Access Instructions
Features news, reports, and statistics about the advertising industry.
Business News
ABI/INFORM Collection (ProQuest)
Provides access to scholarly journals, dissertations, working papers, key business and economics periodicals, and country- and industry-focused reports.
Business Source Premier (EBSCO)
Provides access to a wide range of academic business journals and trade magazines. Topics include management, marketing, finance, economics, and management information systems. Full text access may be embargoed for up to three years. Coverage goes back to 1965.
Factiva (Dow Jones)
The trial ends 9/30!
Nexis Uni Limitations on Use
Formerly known as LexisNexis Academic. Provides full text access to national and international newspaper and magazine articles and news transcripts, business, company, and industry information in the U.S. and abroad, and legal documents, including U.S. Federal and State court cases, and law reviews. Coverage varies.
Limitations on Use:
LexisNexis online services and the materials contained therein are under copyright by LexisNexis. All rights reserved. No part of these Services may be used except for research purposes, and the Services may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the LexisNexis Academic Library Solutions. Materials retrieved from the Services may not be duplicated in hard copy or machine-readable form without the prior written authorization of LexisNexis Academic & Library Solutions, except that limited reproduction of output is permitted solely for individual use by the Authorized User or internal distribution within the Subscribing Institution in accordance with the terms of this Agreement unless further limited or prohibited by the Copyright Act of 1976. Under no circumstances may the Materials or any portion thereof be used to create derivative products or services.