When it comes to navigating your industry as a small business, there is only one thing that you can rely on: change. And that can apply to everything from customer needs to the technology that’s available to you to the state of the economy. And more important than recognizing change is knowing how to identify industry trends.
So the key to a successful small business is staying ahead of the curve when it comes to industry trends. However, that’s much more easily said than done. It requires you to gather and interpret data and use a savvy business approach to implement changes that will yield positive results. That can be a tall order for small businesses that may not have a lot of resources at their disposal.
Even so, it is possible. In fact, small businesses may be even better equipped to change than larger ones, as they tend to be inherently more flexible in their processes.Here’s what you need to know to identify trends and adapt on the fly:
Use trend-tracking tools
Trend-tracking tools are designed to identify potential industry trends so businesses can more easily adapt to shifting customer interests. Often, this involves leveraging keywords and using artificial intelligence (AI) to identify anomalies in the ways people are navigating the internet.
Some of these tools include Exploding Topics, Semrush, CB Insights, Owler and Remesh. The depth of the data you’ll be able to access, as well as the tools available to you, will depend on the tool you choose. So your budget could be a constraining factor here.
Some of the indicators that can help you identify industry trends via these tools include:
- Search volume
- Search term growth
- Term popularity over time (including seasonal spikes)
- Related terms
If you’re new to these tools, you may also have to build up a database of relevant search terms and topics. That way, you’ll be able to see emerging trends more easily without falling into the trap of irrelevant data. Some of these will be obvious terms, but some may not be, so sourcing terms from your own expertise as well as customer feedback can be useful.
Invest in research and development
Staying in touch with your industries’ movements is another key way to ensure that you don’t fall behind. That means investing in research and development (R&D), and that can take on many forms.
For example, R&D can be as simple as reading up on industry news and keeping an eye on competitor movements to identify industry shifts as they’re happening. It can also look like identifying ways to reduce company costs or otherwise streamline processes to boost profits. Experimentation can also play a role in the development of new products or services.
R&D can require a large monetary investment, so it may be necessary to start on a smaller scale. (But you should also note that certain businesses can use the Small Business Innovation Research Program or other federal funds to support those efforts.) Even so, the long-term results of R&D can pave the way toward big rewards.
Use polls and consumer feedback
Your customers are a reliable and important source of information about your business. So if you haven’t yet tapped that resource, now is an excellent time to start. (This can also be integral to R&D.)
You can get customer feedback in a few ways. For instance, you may consider sending a consumer feedback survey to your newsletter recipients or confirmed customers. Poll questions on your business’ social media accounts, like Instagram and Facebook, can also help you understand where you should be putting your efforts.
Customer analytics can also provide valuable insights. So putting together a customer relationship management (CRM) team (or using CRM software) may be useful. Those can help you gather data and become more closely acquainted with the evolving needs and wants of your customer base.
Analyzing consumer behavior
Just as it’s important to identify potential trends, businesses need to be able to recognize when a “trend” is actually a fad in disguise. Trends happen over a longer period of time and cause real change. By contrast, fads come and go with little to no impact beyond short-term sales. And, importantly, adapting to trends is vital to a business’ staying power. For example, AI-driven product enhancements are projected to contribute 45% of total economic gains by 2030, per a recent study from PwC, a professional services provider.
Customer behavior can tell you a lot about industry trends. Let’s say you see that your website is experiencing higher-than-average traffic on certain pages. That can show more interest (and sales potential) for those topics, products or services. Examining customer profiles, including factors like income or education level, can provide further insight into their decisions or how they view your business or industry.
Customer behavior can also be assessed via search terms, which, as noted, trend-tracking tools can illuminate. But popularity alone doesn’t tell the whole story about a search term’s relevance or importance. You have to contextualize what that data means for your business. That means considering how people are using a given term as well as its broader context.
Adapting to market changes
Understanding industry trends is one thing — adapting to them is another. And speed is vital to successfully adapting to industry trends. In other words, businesses should ensure that there are supports in place to allow for leveraging your new insight. And an agile approach to business culture, procedure and strategy is the key.
For example, making sure that projects are structured and managed in a way that allows room to adapt to changes can allow your business to more easily keep up in an evolving landscape. So implementing agile practices, like scrum or kanban board workflows, can help support that goal.
The idea is to not only keep an eye out for trends but also plan for them even when you can’t yet see the full scope of those changes.
This can look like testing several approaches to the same trend to find the best way forward. It can also mean trialing a new business model. For example, many industries have turned to a subscription business model in the past few years. That has helped to not only stabilize their profits but also increase customer engagement.
There are many approaches to gathering data on customer behavior and identify industry trends. Each has its own merits, and the options available to you may depend on your business’s budget. But through careful consideration and a forward-thinking attitude, not only can small businesses keep up with industry changes, they can also lead the way.
61 Views
Trending Articles
