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Marketing Communications Research Guide

When to Use This Guide

Use this guide when you need information on a company's promotional activities, such as personal selling, mass selling (advertising and publicity), public relations, and sales promotion. Sometimes marketing communications or "marcom" may refer narrowly to communications messaging and positioning of a company's products and services, and the channels for delivering those messages, including print media, interactive media, and public relations. Marketing communications is an important part of a company's brand identity, the sum total of the consumer's experience and perception of a company and its offerings.

Finding General or Background Information on Marketing Communications

Marketing communications, or promotion, encompasses a number of elements, each of which is a separate searchable topic in its own right. The following titles may be useful for general or background information.

• The Blackwell Encyclopedic Dictionary of Marketing [electronic resource]
• Dictionary of Marketing Terms - R HF5415 .D4874 1995
• The Bare Bones Introduction to Integrated Marketing Communication - HF5415.123 .B5568 2009

Subject Headings for Finding Marketing Communications Information in the Book and Media Catalog

• Advertising
• Advertising media planning
• Brand name products
• Communication in marketing
• Public relations
• Sales promotion

Finding Articles About Marketing Communications in Research Databases

Business Insights: Essentials (formerly Business and Company Resource Center)
In addition to information on specific companies and the industries of which they are a part, you can use Advanced Search for finding business and trade journal articles on branding, internet marketing, the marketing industry, and marketing communications.

Business Source Complete
Search for marketing or marketing communications. Includes articles from scholarly, trade, and general interest publications.

JSTOR
Search here for articles on marketing communications in scholarly business journals.

Selected Web Sites

Public Relations Society of America
Organization of PR professionals; includes online access to Public Relations Journal.

Know This (Marketing Virtual Library)
A leading resource for information on marketing, market research, advertising, and other areas of the marketing field. Contains tutorials, articles, and research reports.

ClickZ
A large Internet marketing resource site devoted to interactive (online) marketing, including news, commentary from experts, statistics, and in-depth feature articles.

International Association of Business Communicators
This organization is a leading resource in all facets of business communication, including marketing communications. Its membership journal, Communication World, is available through ProQuest.

MarcommWise
Marketing Communications resources, hosted by a Canadian market research company. Includes articles, a glossary of marketing communications terms, and calculators to help estimate costs and profitability of advertising campaigns.

American Marketing Association
Registration and/or membership is required to reach certain areas of this site, but there is plenty of free information, including articles on best practices and a dictionary of marketing terms.

Page Last Updated: February 14 2013