Research Links Page

The starting point for good marketing strategies is a thorough study and assessment of your industry, markets, customers and competitors.  Company websites, and the general and business news sites offer a lot of useful information.   You should also try the major search engines for web-based info on your industry.   Try more than one, because each one will return somewhat different results. 

The links listed below offer some other good starting points for gathering information over the internet.  The list is only a starting point.   Please feel free to email me with suggestions for additional links.

Online databases available through the Mercer University Swilley Library.   Particularly useful is the business links page which is arranged by various common business search categories.  Two very valuable databases for finding industry-wide comparison information are ValueLine and Tablebase. Also, you can use Mergent Online to create customized reports of company financial data for download to Excel. Get the password.
 

Lexis-Nexis is also now available off-campus.  When you click on the Lexis-Nexis link from the Swilley Library page, you will be prompted for your last name and the last 4 digits of your social security number (for international students and counseling students that's the last 4 digits of their CWID.) If you are unable to access Lexis/Nexis off-campus via EZProxy, please send an email to tang_fy@mercer.edu or leave a message at 678-547-6261 with your first and last name, the last four digits of your social security or CWID number.

 Google Scholar is a tool that searches various libraries and other online academic databases for articles and books. Sign in may be required, but it's free.
 

EDGAR is the database of financial filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

EdgarScan contains essentially the same info as EDGAR.  Most find it easier to use, but somewhat slower due to the graphic heavy format.  Be sure to try the 'Find Peers' feature to locate potential competitor companies and the graphic financial comparison tools.

www.morningstar.com The free access portion of this well known mutual fund rating service offers quite a bit of good financial information.
 

http://www.business.com   contains news, financial and other info on companies arranged by industry category.   Also, to find info on any particular company, just type in the company name in the search field.

U.S. Census Bureau makes all kinds of demographic data available to you at  http://www.census.gov/ . The Annual Statistical Abstract can be viewed & downloaded here: http://www.census.gov/statab/www/ .

U.S. Census Bureau's mapping service allows you to create maps of U.S. MSA's illustrating many of the Census Bureau's demographic categories at   http://tiger.census.gov/ .

Brokerage firms with which you have an account.  Schwab (among others) offers you a trial run of its research services.

CIA's World Factbook: www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook . Great information on just about any country you might be interested in.

 

BusinessWeek Online contains some free content.

Wall Street Jounal Online offers a brief free trial.
 

Blogspotting.net  Business Week's blog on how blogs affect business and the media.
 

EuroStat  An exhaustive set of tables, charts, and other data provided by the European Commission. For most data tables, you will have the ability to customize graphs based on your own interests. Free registration is required to access some of the advanced features.
 

International Marketing Links Page  A links site listing hundreds of relevant links for accessing international marketing data.
 

Babel Fish  A free web site language translation service.