There’s no need to just guess at what’s next for the market you’re in.

Instead, carefully gathered data can take the guess work out of your future thinking.

Predictive trend spotting can now be used within businesses to understand what is next for them, and in our latest guide we explore a whole range of ways that businesses can keep track of future-telling indicators.

Here we’ll discuss how trend spotting will enable you to predict demand, manage crises, and understand how emerging trends can impact your industry. But, if you’re looking for more details, examples, and ways to predict trends, make sure you check out the guide itself.

Let’s take a look.

Predicting demand

Predicting demand has always been a challenge for companies of all kinds.

Without the right data, inventories can be left full to the brim or customers miss out when not enough of the product is ready to go on sale.

By gathering data from online sources, it becomes easier to predict the level of demand.

The general discussion around products can be dissected into positive sentiment and mentions which suggest an intention to purchase, which can be used to predict the levels of demand around a product.

With this data, you can map out how much demand there will be (even breaking things down by location), and plan accordingly.

As one example in the guide shows, demand for products to come back into stock is often more likely to be discussed on social media than in other forms of contact with brands.

It’s also important to look at other forms of online data, like search data, and to blend online data points with other sources to see which factors affect demand.

Check out our trend spotting guide for some great examples of this.

Crisis management

No one likes a crisis, and dealing with them can be frustrating, complicated, and stressful with a very short time frame in which to deal with the problem.

However, with the right kind of alerts set up, the ability to predict when a major crisis is coming becomes much easier.

The benefits of buying time before things escalate are huge – it’s similar to stopping a snowball before it becomes an avalanche. The earlier you catch it, the more prepared you are to deal with it.

In our guide, you can see how a number of real-life scenarios play out, and the benefits of picking up on potential crises early.

Similarly to managing a crisis, being the first to know and predicting emerging trends in your industry can give your brand a huge competitive advantage.

Trends in your industry may start a bit further away from home than you think.

For example, consider hairstyles. As the guide shows, a client working within this industry was able to spot how hairstyles have tended to start off in Asia before going viral. So, by studying regions where trends start, they were able to get a head start on their competitors for the newest crazes.

Meanwhile, companies looking to track longer term trends should keep an eye on a number of sources – search data can be a great indicator that something is becoming more mainstream.

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The Predictive Trend Spotting Guide

Picking up on trends has never been easier.

Our clients use online data all the time for predictive trend spotting, from getting extra time to craft responses to the media about a crisis through to understanding the impact of hype on demand for their products.

In a fast moving world, being able to predict trends effectively is an invaluable way to future-proof your business.