CHARACTERISTICS (and limitations) OF MARKET RESEARCH

GOVERNMENT RESOURCES

The mother of all data sources on the population and on business establishments is the U.S. Census Bureau. For the latest available information, start with American FactFinder and click on the "Data Sets" link. You can then select one of the following:

• American Community Survey - for annual demographic and socio-economic data for states, counties, and selected cities.



• Annual Economic Surveys: County Business Patterns - for the number of establishments and employees by NAICS industry sector.



• Nonemployer Statistics - for the number of establishments without paid employees, by NAICS industry sector.

COMMERCIAL RESOURCES

The Right Site ® has hundreds of thousands of free demographic profiles, based on Census of Population and Housing data. EASI Census 2000 Quick Reports are available for area codes and TV markets, as well as the usual geographic divisions. (Registration is required.)

More modestly, the firm ESRI offers free demographic and lifestyle data with their ZIP Lookup Tool, which include household income, home values, and a description of the predominant Tapestry segments.

A similar ZIP code lookup site with neighborhood lifestyle segmentation information is You Are Where You Live, offered by Claritas, with its PRIZM NE Segmentation System.

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

City-Data.com consolidates information from many sources for its profiles of towns and cities, including crime data, housing, businesses, political contributions, weather, hospitals, schools, libraries, as well as race, income, ancestries, education, employment statistics on the residents.

PolicyMap displays many popular categories of demographic information as maps, including population, income, home ownership, and education. The underlying data is derived from both government and commercial sources.

To find Historical Census data using maps, consult Social Explorer. This site provides access to selected data sets for censuses from 1790-2000.

LIBRARY RESOURCES

Thanks to the New Jersey Knowledge Initiative, two useful business databases are available on JerseyClicks:

• Business Source Premier covers most business and management topics including accounting, finance, marketing, and strategic planning. It contains the full-text (or abstracts) of articles from thousands of professional publications, academic journals, and trade magazines.
  
  
• ReferenceUSA offers several searchable database modules containing detailed information on more than 14 million U.S. businesses and 120 million U.S. residents. A Custom Search of businesses allows searching of many fields including geographic location, size of business, Yellow Pages heading, and SIC and NAICS industry codes.

Demographics USA, published by Trade Dimensions every year, has demographic, income, retail sales, and establishments data for counties and states. (DANA REF HF 5438.4 .S87)

Financial Studies of the Small Business provides industry averages and financial ratios as benchmarks for your business. (DANA REF HD 2346 .U5 F55A)

RESEARCH GUIDES

For more sources of information, both in print and on the Internet, please refer to my online guides to Market Research and Industry Research.