For assistance in a school project, many students contact a corporation directly for information on their marketing plans.
Marketing plans are highly proprietary, as they contain the strategies and tactics that will be used in meeting business goals for the year.
Regrettably, for this reason, they cannot be shared with anyone outside of the company.
We are pleased to provide you with a list of public sources that will help you in your school project.
The Library: A Good Place to Start
The best starting point is usually your own college library. Charges for on-line searches are often reduced or waived for enrolled students, so not only is the information near at hand; it is also less expensive to obtain.
- On-Line Searches: When looking for information on marketing plans, remember that marketing plan
is a topic under the Library of Congress subject headings.
When doing a search on-line in your library reference system,
you may want to begin by reviewing the company's Annual Reports.
These will outline the company's mission, goals and objectives as well as
corporate structure and financial results. It may help you to understand
spending ratios for advertising and research, for example, and this information
can usually be found. New product introductions or changes in strategies are often covered as well.
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Analyst Reports: Analyst reports also provide good information on a company and its strategies. Sources such as Value Line are updated quarterly by analysts who specialize in particular industries. These provide an industry outlook as well as company-specific forecasts.
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Web Sites: Visit the Web Sites of the organization and see what you can learn. By examining the sites you should be able to deduce typical target consumers for various products. You may learn about strategies supporting the products. Ask yourself what the company is trying to communicate to its audiences.
Once you have a good feel for the organization, you can explore further. Here are some additional resources.
Industry Associations and Organizations
- American Marketing Association
- www.ama.org
312-542-9000
1-800-AMA-1150
The American Marketing Association provides information to both members and nonmembers (materials available for a fee for nonmembers.)
Membership is available to students at a fee of $30/year.
The AMA Information Center/Library is a powerful resource providing
a wealth of materials to the marketing student/professional. The AMA has published a series entitled The Marketing Toolbox Series,
four books available in both paperback and binder with supporting software, that may be useful in your search.
- Public Relations Society of America
- www.prsa.org
212-460-1400
Identify the agency of record for the company or brand you are studying. Look for reviews of current and past programs in PR trade publications to see what PR professionals think of the company's tactics.
- SMEI/Sales & Marketing Executives International
- www.smei.org
1-800-999-1414
The SMEI site provides a search engine so you can narrow in on your company, brand, key officers or employees.
- The Direct Marketing Association
- www.the-dma.org
- Business Marketing Association
- www.marketing.org
1-800-664-4BMA
Journals/Periodicals
- Public Relations Society of America
- www.prsa.org
212-460-1440
- Advertising Age
- www.adage.com
A companion to Advertising Age magazine, this site provides a helpful search engine as well as a great deal of other "news worthy" information. Most college and university libraries carry this publication. Look for coverage of recent advertising strategies of your company, brand or even category.
- Fortune magazine
- www.fortune.com
Provides a search engine in finding information on the Fortune 500 companies.
- Business Week
- www.businessweek.com
- American Demographics magazine
- www.demographics.com
- Wall Street Journal
- www.wsj.com
University Sites Providing Information
- Cal Poly University Library
- www.csupomona.edu
Cal Poly University library lists the definitions of marketing and business plans and lists references in doing research on them.
- Darden Graduate School of Business Administration The Camp Library: Fortune 500
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www.darden.virginia.edu
Other Helpful Sites
- Marketing Plans(Proposals)-Research Assistance
- www.research-assistance.com
1-800-351-0222
Provides high-quality library research reports to the academic and business communities
(for a fee.)
- infoUSA
- www.infousa.com
- Hoover's Online
- www.hoovers.com
Provides comprehensive information on over 10,000 companies in Hoover's Company Capsules and Company Profiles. In addition, provides links to web sites for 5.000+ of the world's largest companies.
- Edgar Database of Corporate Information
- www.sec.gov/edgarhp.htm
Provides company reports for the majority of the public companies required to file with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC).
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