Accessing Marketing Stories

The Marketing Stories we feature on KnowThis.com are located through Internet news outlets and content websites.  While all stories were freely available at the time these were posted to our site, some content providers may no longer provide free access to a story.  In cases where an article is no longer available at the link provided, users may still be able to access an article in one of the following ways:

Look to a Search Engine Cache
Search engines retrieve millions of content items a week from around the Internet and save these in huge databases.  Users can see the saved version through a search engine’s “cached” feature.  While the cached option may leave out graphics, text of an older article is often available.  To find an article using search engine cache, do the following:

1. Go to one of the major search engines and enter the full title of the article using phrase search.  This is done by placing the title of an article inside quotation marks (e.g., “article title”). 
2. Add to the search string the publication’s name (note: we sometimes abbreviate this so you may need to try a couple of variations).
3. If the article’s link appears, first try to click on the regular link to see if it is still currently accessible.  If the link presents something other than the article (e.g.,  “Page Not Found” page, get re-directed to another page) then click on the “cached” link item that is often (but not always) located on the last line of an item appearing in the search listings.  Clicking on the cached link may produce the article as it appeared when the search engine first retrieved it.

University Libraries
Universities often have access to extensive online databases containing thousands of publications.  However, be warned that many libraries limit database access to students, faculty and staff of the university.  So trying to access online may not work, but physically visiting the library may produce a computer station that does allow for free access to databases.

Purchase the Article
Finally, if you are really stuck, the article may be available for a fee.  Here are a couple of options.

1. The most obvious option is to visit the website of the original publisher to see what it costs to access their archives.  In some cases publishers allow users to purchase individual articles while others may require a subscription be purchased.
2. There are a number of information aggregators that have arrangements with publishers to sell publishers’ content.  Most of these have very good search features for locating an article.  One good one is HighBeam Research.