B2B Market Research  Tags: business research research_strategies  

Cornell subscribes to tens of thousands of journals. Use Find e-Journals to locate business journals and newspapers for trend-spotting and articles about new products/services.

Selected journals include: B2B Magazine, Direct Marketing, Multichannel Merchant, Fast Company, Industry and Innovation, Business Week, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and MIT Technology Review.  (Check to see if the library has an electronic copy of a journal/newspaper.)

LinkedIn’s Groups are communities of professionals who share a common experience, passion, interest, affiliation or goal. Consider joining groups like The B2B Voice, BtoB Marketing, B2B Research Network, Market Researchers, Online MR, etc.

A great deal of your research needs will be met with online sources. However, there are some print items you may wish to use as well. We recommend that you speak with a member of our reference staff to learn the best resources for your particular market research project. Here is a selected list of some specialty print materials you might find useful:

• Market Share Reporter (Management Library, Ready Reference, HF 5410 M34) reprints industry market share tables from various publications in one central location. The international companion volume is World Market Share Reporter (Management Library, Ready Reference, HF 5410 W92).  Available online via Business and Company Resource Center.
  
  
• Marketing Sherpa's Business Technology Marketing Benchmark Guide 2007-08 provides practical data for B-to-B software, hardware, & services marketers.  (Management Library, Ready Reference HD30.2 B88 2007/2008)
  
  
• Marketing Research Guide -- If you need to make a survey or model some market research for your project, this guide provides examples. (Management Library, Ready Reference HF5415.2 M35585 2006)
  
  
• The Advanced Dictionary of Marketing: Putting Theory to Use - more than just a dictionary of marketing terms, this book includes information on marketing theory, laws, concepts, and effects. Entries include a basic description, key insights, implications, related keywords, and citations for further reading.
  
  
• Direct Marketing Association Statistical Fact Book (2006) - definitive source for direct marketing data, including projections, sales figures, expenditures, media usage, interactive trends, purchasing habits, and more. Call Number: Ready Reference HF5415.126 F14. 

Use RSS to track market/industry news and identify companies of interest.
You can have the RSS feed go directly into a reader like Google Reader, your email client like Outlook, or a mashup like Pageflakes.

For example: Say you are interested in a high-tech marketing industry. You could subscribe to an RSS feed from a site like Techdirt and/or recieve email updates on what's new in the industry from Technorati.

Monitor tradeshows relevant to your B2B space. Some of the events offer conference session podcasts that reveal valuable insights from industry influencers. Check out sites like ad:tech, Semicon and Biztradeshows.