UNDERSTAND THE INDUSTRY

• Use IBIS World to find industry SWOT, concentration, and competition information.

IDENTIFY COMPETITORS

• Use the advanced search in Mergent Intellect to create lists of companies in your industry and region.

NARROW TARGET MARKET

• Who are the potential customers?  
• What do they value?
  • Use Mintel to understand consumer preferences.
• How many potential customers do you have in your geographic region?
  • Create an Industry Market Profile using BizMiner.

Psychographics refers to information about a specific population's attitudes, aspirations, and other psychological criteria. You can use Marketing databases such as Mintel, RKMA, and Simmons to find psychographic information on your topic. 

You can also use business databases such as Statista, ProQuest One Business, and Business Source Ultimate. However, these resources are not as easy to find as marketing databases. Here are some search tips. 

• In Statista, click the top tab, INSIGHTS. Under MARKET INSIGHTS, click CONSUMER, and then search for your product. For example, "food."
• In ProQuest One Business and in Business Source Ultimate (EBSCO), to find articles that include psychographic data, use keywords to drag that information.

For example: 

• food AND psychograph* OR "buy* attitude*" OR "buy* behavior*" or "buy* belief*" 
• food AND "consumer attitude" OR "consumer behavior" or "consumer belief*" OR "customer attitude" OR "customer behavior" OR "customer belief*" OR "purchase* attitude*" OR "purchase* behavior*" OR "purchase* belief*" OR "shopp* attitude*" OR "shopp* behavior*" OR "shopp* belief*"
• food AND buyer* OR consumer* OR customer* OR purchaser* OR shopper* AND data OR research OR survey

For information about a particular demographic group, use

• food  AND  AND "Generation Z
• food AND Hispanic OR Latin