Today’s guest post is by Karen Auguste of Purple Lynx. She shares with us some ideas for marketing research resources.

---

“As an entrepreneur, I often find myself in need of marketing research resources without the budget to pay for them. Well, I am here to share some of the FREE online marketing research resources that have been useful to me.”

Surveys
You can learn more about your proposed or actual target market through surveys. You can create your own surveys and distribute them through the use of several online survey services.

www.zoomerang.com
www.surveymonkey.com
www.freeonlinesurveys.com

Each comes with similar, yet varying degrees of restrictions, as well as various interfaces, however all of them are very useful tools for small business owners.

Internet Research
Of course, you can conduct some of your market research using search engines such as Google and Yahoo!, however, there are some specific sites that offer useful demographic and census information. If you are a California resident and have a library card, the most useful web site for me has been www.asknow.org. It is the most amazing resource. California librarians are available 24/7 to lead you to online information as only a librarian can. Asknow.org allows you to chat with librarians who deliver links, web pages and a transcript of your chat. It is all very efficient and organized. Another useful database is StateMaster.com. It is a unique statistical database which allows you to research and compare a multitude of different data.

Industry Information
I like using www.bizstats.com. They provide information about standard industry ratios that I find useful when working with business plans and or financials.

Infousa.com and ReferenceUSA.com are both useful when determining the number of records in a particular target market. You can also purchase mailing or telephone lists from them.

Demographic Information
The following sites offer secondary market research data:
www.freedemographics.com
www.bls.gov/bls/demographics.htm
www.bea.doc.gov
www.fedstats.gov
www.census.gov
www.esribis.com

There are a number of other online resources, but this list should get you started.

Cheers!

Karen L. Auguste, Managing Principal
Purple Lynx
300 Frank Ogawa Plaza, #253
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 251-8800 office
(510) 836-8987 fax
www.purplelynx.com

Leave a Reply

	Name (required)
	Mail (will not be published) (required)
	Website

Comment

Anti-spam word: (Required)*
To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture. Click on the picture to hear an audio file of the word.