Market research and other sources of marketing information

The availability of market information has vastly improved and there is a growing appreciation of its value within the industry and how it can impact on both decision-making and traditional power structures. Market research takes place in publishing within multiple departments, looking at a variety of different issues. Market research is being used to isolate markets with unfulfilled needs, to consider how products can be augmented in order to achieve higher market penetration and to understand how marketing information and buying mechanisms are acted upon. Within non-fiction, technical and professional groups, data availability and tighter market definition means market research has been much more widely used. Market intelligence can be based on market data from a variety of sources secured in the pursuit of deeper and longer-term market understanding. New mechanisms for reaching the market need to be thought about as well as the firsthand appeal of materials.