What Can Trend Awareness can do for your Business
Trend is a common term used to predict consumer patterns and behaviors. Awareness of what’s happening in your industry can determine if your business can be relevant or not. As every company modifies its business to cater to the customer’s wants and needs, it is equally important to keep an eye on your industry to achieve flexibility and insight as a leverage for your products and service. For some, they are doing it without being intentional. But for those who want to make a difference in their profit and sustainability, they would spend their time and resources in increasing their trend awareness. Below are some tips to get you started.
5 Tips On How You Can Increase Your Trend Awareness
Develop an Eye for Trends
In order for you to develop an eye for trends, you need to optimize your marketing research within your company. Your capacity to do research and collect data is the key to improving how you see certain movements and increase your sensitivity. Examples of such are predicting buying patterns of your customers and industry movements that can affect your products and services. The idea of having an eye is to see what others may not. And once this information has been processed, you can use it to your advantage. The use of social media analytics or traditional surveys can provide you with valuable information to aid you in crucial decision makings. Getting the information straight from your customer is a gem for you and your business.
Intentionally Expand Your Network
Every business owner knows the benefits of expanding the network since this model can bring a lot of benefits to every party involved. From increasing sales to gaining important information and knowledge, you can list a handful of upsides that can be advantageous to your business interest. As we are living at the height of social media usage, you can easily talk to owners from different parts of the globe that share your industry. From there you can create a community that supports your own businesses. You can get fresh ideas and uncommon solutions that will allow you to see what others are doing. If you think your business has certain limitations in terms of network expansion, you need to start now and reap from its benefits. Be intentional this time!
Source Out latest Blogs and Materials Related to Your Industry
How many of you are doing the habit of reading random blogs and write-ups available on the Internet?
For most, it may seem like a simple reading. However, if you can have access to those who are sharing their experiences and industry secrets through blogs, then you can use it as a source of information to predict trends. The idea is to patiently source out materials that are related to your type of business and look for patterns and consistency in how they write. Blogs can be categorized as personal experience blogs, niche blogs where people discuss their interests, hobbies, and lifestyle. There are counter-culture blogs that give opposite views to attract readers, case study blogs that provide guidelines, and detailed information about a specific topic. All these things can be of worth when placed in the right hands. Source out the latest materials and increase your trend knowledge!
Be aware of What Your Competitor Is Doing
I’m sure that most are familiar with Sun Tzu’s saying “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”. In increasing your trend awareness, observing your competitors can help you stay in the game. Ask important questions like, what are their promotional and pricing strategies? How do they distribute their products? What level of customer service do they offer? Such questions can help study them. For every move of your competitor can possibly be a reaction to a specific trend. It can be difficult at times to predict these strategies but it helps if you carefully observe and learn from them at the same time. It takes an open-minded owner to do this with ease.
Flexibility on Your Business/Company’s Direction
If you are at a level where you do an annual business review to set your goals and objectives for the year, then it’s a sign that your business is growing and in a sustainable state. It’s a good practice to stick with your agreed goals for the year but it can be beneficial if there is a certain level of flexibility once you identified an important trend within your industry. One good example is the effect of a pandemic to all businesses around the world. People’s buying patterns have changed, there is a major shift in buying in selling from physical stores to online stores, social distancing has become a factor for businesses who are dependent on gatherings and so on. New trends arise as the world braces for the new normal. Without flexibility, it will be difficult to adjust to new business strategies.
Conclusion
Awareness in trends is more valuable today than ever before. The major shift in the customer’s needs and wants are extremes. Businessmen today are required to possess resiliency and creativity to cope in these changing times. Your ability to make this information productive lies in your execution and application as an owner. Challenge yourself today and increase your trend awareness.