Does your business pay attention to business trends that will shape our future?
I hope you do, as they can be critical to your marketing efforts. Knowing as much as you can about your market and your customers is a great way to start your marketing strategy.
For marketers today, everything begins and ends with consumers.
Understanding consumer preferences and behaviors are essential to developing a successful campaign, brand, and offers.
Consumer trends tell us what habits or behaviors are becoming more prevalent.
They help us track what people buy, why they buy, how they use products, and how they communicate about brands.
Every year, Pew Research publishes a collection of facts about the important events, issues, and trends we documented in our wide-ranging research over the past 12 months.
Most businesses do not manage change. Change takes them by surprise.
Not a good thing.
What these businesses do best is to manage the conflict wrought by change.
Reacting does not equate to anticipating … you must improve your trend watching and anticipating skills so you can change before you have to.
A good thing.
In 2016, the Pew Research Center examined an array of topics in America – from immigration to the growing divide between Republicans and Democrats – as well as many from around the globe.
Here are some of their most striking findings, and our comments on how these may impact our future over the next decade.
From 2000 to 2014, the share of adults living in middle-income households fell in 203 of the 229 U.S. metropolitan areas examined in a Pew Research Center analysis of government data.
The decrease in the middle-class share was often substantial, measuring six percentage points or more in 53 metropolitan areas, compared with a 4-point drop nationally.
However, the share of adults in the upper-income tier increased more than the share of adults in the lower-income tier in 119 of the 229 areas examined.
What it means for the future
Marketers will need to do a new analysis on targeting and not rely on old data sets. This will be essential if you are targeting metropolitan middle-class Americans.
The reshaping of our political parties
The Democratic Party is becoming less white, less religious and better-educated at a faster rate than the country as a whole while aging somewhat more slowly.
Republican voters are becoming more diverse, better-educated and less religious at a slower rate than the country.
What it means for the future
Lots on the line for our future. Both parties will need to retool for their future leadership. Are you game to learn more about trend spotting? If so check out this short video.
Millennials are the largest living generation
Now numbering 75.4 million, the Millennial population continues to grow as young immigrants expand its ranks, and this year, the number of Millennials eligible to vote was about equal to that of the Baby Boomer generation.
If you are a small businessman, it will require you to know all you can about millennials.
Why they buy, their interests, and where and how they prefer to shop.
Young people are more likely to be living with their parents than with a spouse or partner
In 2014, for the first time in more than 130 years, adults ages 18 to 34 were slightly more likely to be living in their parents’ home than they were to be living with a spouse or partner in their household.
These new living arrangements largely reflect a shift away from marriage and partnership as young adults increasingly focus on education and the workplace.
Partly as a result, a record 60.6 million Americans are now living in multigenerational households.
What it means for the future
Who is influencing the millennial is a critical question to answer. Parents are more likely to be influencers than before, in our opinion.
Interpreting populace views on five decades of the standard of living
About eight-in-ten Trump backers (81%) said life is worse than it was 50 years ago for people like them, compared with just 11% who said it had gotten better.
Most Clinton supporters took the opposite stance:
About six-in-ten (59%) said life for people like them has gotten better over the past half-century,
while 19% said it has gotten worse.
What it means for the future
The election results of 2016 have put a ‘forever’ stamp on how fractionated the United States populace has become.
It will be getting harder and harder to create meaningful solutions to our problems.
Equality in rights among Americans
About four-in-ten blacks (43%) are skeptical that America will ever make the changes needed for blacks to achieve equal rights with whites.
Only 11% of whites express the same doubts about the U.S. making the necessary changes for blacks to have equal rights with whites.
Overall, blacks are much more likely than whites to say black people are treated less fairly in the workplace, when applying for a loan or mortgage, in dealing with police, in the courts, in stores or restaurants and when voting.
What it means for the future
Just another area that will contribute to fractionated opinions within the American populace. Hard keeps getting harder.
Shape our future … the growing education gap
A wide gap in presidential preferences emerged in the 2016 election between whites with and without a college degree.
Trump’s margin among whites without a college degree was the largest among any candidate in exit polls since 1980.
Two-thirds (67%) of non-college whites backed him, compared with just 28% who supported Clinton.
What it means for the future
Does education level impact opinions for the future?
It never did much in the past. Not so sure this result will continue to have much impact on the future.
Majorities of U.S. adults say they would be “very” or “somewhat” worried about gene editing (68%), brain chips (69%) and synthetic blood (63%), while no more than half say they would be enthusiastic about each of these developments.
Some people say they would be both enthusiastic and worried, but, overall, concern outweighs excitement.
The biggest resistance is toward technologies that would result in abilities “far above that of any human known to date” or in permanent changes.
What it means for the future
Another one of those results that have yet to play out fully. We are not sure there will be much impact on these results.
Game changers.
Need some help in building better customer insights from your customer engagement? Creative ideas to help grow your customer base?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job of growing customer insights and pay for results.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new insights that you have learned.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
Check out these additional articles on market trends from our library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of a small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
