How to Keep Up With Changing Consumer Trends in Marketing
As marketers, we have to keep up with emerging consumer trends to keep the brands we manage relevant. That’s becoming easier to do now that the world is becoming more digitised. We can tap into a variety of platforms and databases that are constantly gathering information about consumers.
Marketers need to stay up to date with changing consumer trends so that they can frame their brand messaging in an engaging way. Staying in tune with consumers helps us to position products and services effectively while identifying growth opportunities and untapped demand. However, consumer trends can change quickly, so it’s important to use data that’s readily available to stay up to date. Here are three simple and cost-effective ways you can keep up with consumer trends using online tools:
Google Trends
Social Media Trends
Market Research
Google Trends
Google Trends is a powerful tool that helps you to understand what answers people are trying to find using the most popular search engine in the world. The types of searches that consumers make give marketers a lot of insight into what’s going on in their lives. Google Trends also gives you the opportunity to leverage Google’s aggregate search data, not just the insights you can see in your own Google Ads or Google Search Console account. So, if your brand is new to the market and doesn’t have a mature marketing function that’s picking up a lot of consumer data yet, then Google Trends is a valuable go-to resource.
You can see search interest over time, related queries to explore more deeply, and also filter your data by location. By identifying trending topics you can start to identify changes in consumer trends and shifts in demand.
It’s also a great way to monitor seasonal patterns. People will make different searches based on the time of the year and the weather. For example, searches for home gym equipment tend to spike when the temperature starts to drop in winter and people become more reluctant to exercise outside. You might also want to drill down into particular regions or countries, as consumer behaviours can vary a lot across different locations and cultures.
Social Media Trends
The content that brands and consumers share across social media can give you a lot of insight into what’s popular at a given point in time. Since influencers tend to have a large following on social media and lead tight-knit communities, they can influence trends and purchasing decisions. So, it’s a good idea to follow influencers in your market, so that you can stay on top of the trends and see what products and services are resonating with your shared audiences.
Fostering a two-way conversation with your audience on social media will also give you real-time insight into how their tastes and preferences are changing over time. Staying across your engagement rates, reach, brand mentions, and hashtags will give you insight into what people are saying about your brand and what’s resonating with them.
Pinterest Trends is also a free online database for learning about new consumer trends. Pinterest is a social media platform that helps people to gather ideas that inspire them, but it is also used as a search engine.
People will search for ideas and inspiration that align with their interests. Pinterest Trends allows you to filter its aggregate platform search data by time, location, interests, keywords, age, and gender. It’s also easy to see weekly, monthly, and yearly changes in searches. When looking into consumer trends for our own clients, we have noticed that topics and searches often start trending on Pinterest before Google. People are going to Pinterest to get inspired, but then they go to Google to buy. This means it’s a great place to get early insights into emerging consumer trends.
Market Research
There are many large organisations that gather consumer trends and research for different markets. For example, Think With Google, SimilarWeb, and WARC publish regular content that analyses consumer trends and draws out insights for you.
It’s also a good idea to check out Census data. Millions of Australians complete the Census survey regularly and the data is readily available online. It’s a great way to learn about the average household income, age, and other demographics of people that you want to reach in various locations. Consumer attitudes, behaviours, and priorities can differ based on where they live and who they interact with. Census information gives you a lot of insight into their context. You can also access historical data and use various tools to visualise population trends.
The Need for Speed
Your target audience should easily see how your brand fits into their lives. That’s why staying up to date with consumer trends is so important. It helps to keep your brand nimble, responsive, and relevant. It also helps you to spend your marketing budget in the right areas, identify new growth opportunities, and stay ahead of the competition while building a loyal customer base.