Outside Influences
People are strongly influenced by what surrounds them. The weather, their friends, their surroundings, social developments, technology — the environment in which people find themselves arguably influences how they feel and perceive reality. It is therefore incredibly important that marketers understand how trends and environments affect customers, clients and consumers.
Trendwatching
What I’m talking about here is the (marketing) tool known as trendwatching. More self-explanatory names don’t really exist. Trendwatching is all about watching trends happening in the real world and using them to your advantage. Trendwatching isn’t limited to marketing, but marketing is one of the fields that make use of the practice more often than most.
Any marketer worth his or her salt knows how important trendwatching is. Knowing what is going on in the world and how that will influence consumer behaviour is critical to the success of any business. Creating marketing plans without having this insight is like blindfolding yourself, equipping a revolver and trying to hit a moving target — the odds of success are infinitesimally small. Of course, with the world as dynamic and progressive as it is, it’s not always easy to stay up-to-date on all relevant trends.
As Venuepark’s CMO, I do a lot of trendwatching. My methods are by no means universal or exhaustive, but they serve Venuepark well. In this blog, I will be explaining how I watch trends.
Trendwatching 101
If at this, point I’ve made trendwatching sound like a science, my apologies. Trendwatching is actually remarkably simple if you’re willing to dedicate time to the practice. At the end of the of the day, trendwatching boils down to staying informed about people’s wants and needs, which are based on numerous external factors, and then adapting to these. Below, I’ve outlined a few examples of how I would recommend doing this (with Venuepark in mind).
- Find online sources. There are so many amazing sources that keep you up to date with relevant marketing news. Forbes, Hootsuite, Hubspot, Social Chain — the list is endless.
- Use your analytics. Regardless of the social media platform(s) you use for your business, learn to understand and use a given platform’s analytics tools. Engagement, reach, impressions — all this stuff is super important to knowing the way your followers behave.
- Talk to peers. This one may seem archaic, but talking to peers is a really good way to get insight you wouldn’t otherwise have. If you know someone who works for a start-up, ask him or her what trends they’re seeing/predicting. You can ask the same from practically anyone you know who is knowledgeable.
- Conduct interviews. Interviewing someone who knows their stuff will always give you valuable insight. Furthermore, share the interview (with the interviewee’s permission) and you’ll be working towards establishing yourself as a source of reliable content.
- Start discussions. There are plenty of forums like Reddit and Quora where you can start discussions about a topic. Why not start one about trendwatching?
- Publish surveys. This one requires a bit more effort. Surveys are a brilliant way to get clear, quantifiable data on various topics. Asking people to complete a short trendwatching survey might give you insight into trends that you wouldn’t normally consider.
- Perform small experiments. If you’re testing out a trend theory, start small (perhaps with a focus group). Try to generate genuine results from these small groups and then extrapolate these results to the bigger picture.
Conclusion
These are the main methods I apply/intend to apply when it comes to Venuepark. Like I said, my methods do not form an exhaustive list but they should help you on your way towards watching trends more effectively.
Failure to watch trends and adapt to them can be disastrous to a company, especially in an economy where business trends are largely consumer driven. Trends can’t be predicted or prepared for with 100% but 90% isn’t a bad target to go for.