This assignment gives you an opportunity to get some solid experience in finding reputable, authoritative information to support your business idea. Keep in mind: If you were doing this sort of project with real money on the line (yours or someone else's), you wouldn't want to rely on the first three things that show up in your Google search results. . .
You can search library resources to find
Because your focus is on Lincoln, you will also need to refer to some web-based resources as well. Not a lot of commercially published market research is going to be specifically relevant to Lincoln. Possible sources of information include:
Here are a few things to keep in mind when searching for evidence:
For this sort of project or assignment, Google can definitely be useful--you just have to plan your searches a bit more carefully and thoroughly evaluate what you find.
You can find lots of secondary data that was gathered, compiled, synthesized and reported by someone else for another purpose that may also have relevance for your own business research. The information you find may not be specific to Lincoln, but you can draw conclusions from larger studies of a particular industry, product/service, or target consumer group.
For example, a Google search on
grocery shopping consumers survey filetype:pdf
included this document in the results that provide the results of a nationwide survey of grocery shoppers that reflects consumer attitudes and behaviors.
Professional/industry associations can be another source of information when doing a business/target market-related project. Many times the information on the trade association web site is available only to dues-paying members, but there are often public materials and documents that anyone can access.
Just search for the name of your trade/industry/profession along with the word association
banking association