Turn your modem into a cash machine - how to get hot market information in minutes - Sales & Marketing - column - Tutorial

Home Office Computing, March, 1992 by Rosalind Resnick

HOW to Get Hot Market

Information in Minutes

Which region of the country buys the most gourmet confections?

Which company is expected to emerge as the leader in the biotech industry by 1995?

Who are the 10 biggest players in the public-relations field?

If you have a modem attached to your computer, you can dig up the answers to marketing questions such as these in a matter of minutes--information that can help you crack new markets and do more business with the customers you already have. By logging on to CompuServe, Dialog, DataStar, NewsNet, and other on-line services, you can get fast, accurate information about target markets, trademark availability, credit information--even your competition's marketing plan. (See "On-Line Database Resources" for more on what's out there.)

MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR MINUTES

The trouble is that with all the on-line databases out there, where do you begin? It can be very confusing. There are roughly 5,500 databases now on-line, according to Sue Rugge of The Rugge Group, an information-gathering company based in Oakland, California. And, once you've logged on, how do you get the biggest bang for your buck?

Despite the considerable advantages, online searches can cost a small fortune if you don't watch what you're doing. Individual databases such as Dialog's Agrochemicals Handbook can cost more than $200 an hour to search, and many services require mastery of a complex set of search commands and procedures. Some services, such as Dialog and Dow Jones News/Retrieval, now offer easy-to-operate menus, but this convenience generally will end up costing you more: Not only can these interfaces slow down your search, but in Dialog's case, you'll pay an extra 25 cents a minute to use the menu feature.

But you don't have to be an information professional to boost your business via on-line searches. Ed Shore, a former United States Commerce Department official, runs a service called Trade Data Exchange out of his home in Columbia, Maryland. Every day, Shore downloads dozens of trade leads--items such as a request by a foreign government for bids on supplying machine parts--from his old department's Economic Bulletin Board. Then he loads them into a simpler menu-driven system that allows his customers in the international trade community to search for topics with simple query words such as apparel, footwear, or computers.

That's far more efficient, Shore says, than trudging off to the local library or one of the Commerce Department's district offices and sifting through trade data contained in weighty tomes or on CD-ROM. And, although Shore's customrs could log on to the government's bulletin board if they wished, they'd have to wade through a maze of arcane terms and, in the case of the trade leads, download the entire file and sift through them manually.

TIPS FOR MARKET RESEARCH ON-LINE

If you're considering doing some market research on-line, it's important to keep the following principles in mind:

Know before you go. Before engaging your modem, ask yourself who your target market really is. Are your potential customers manufacturers? Distributors? Retailers? Consumers? Are they located in a particular state or region, or do they live all over the world? Equally important: Ask yourself what information you're really looking for. The more you can define your search beforehand on paper, the less time and money you'll end up spending on-screen.

Narrow your search. Typing in the search words photocopiers and industry could easily turn up dozens or even hundreds of entries, most of which could be irrelevant to your needs. Rather than waste time and money sifting through all that, try to formulate the most specific search possible. If you enter photocopiers and industry and competition and Canon and Sharp, you stand a better shot at retrieving more specific market information.

Ask for help. Many on-line services offer help both on-and off-line--off-line through toll-free phone numbers and manuals, and on-line through support services such as IQuest's SOS. When a CompuServe user types SOS during a search on IQuest (a gateway that offers access to more than 850 databases), a support staffer comes on-line with advice on where to look.

Log on at off-peak times. Many on-line services charge less during nights and week-ends. For instance, Dialog offers its Knowledge Index service, which gives you access to more than 100 Dialog databases during evenings and weekends at a reduced rate. Dow Jones News/Retrieval discounts access to its full selection of databases during off-peak hours.

Dial direct. You'll spend less if you dial databases individually rather than going through a gateway service such as IQuest. For example, IQuest typically charges $9 to search its library of publications, databases, and indexes. But if you already know which database you need, you can spend as little as $2 to $4 a search. If you want to search D&B Dun's Market Identifiers, for example, simply log on to CompuServe and enter GO DUNS.