Predictive Trend Spotting For DBA Degrees

Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) degree programs will teach you that current trends have limited value. Instead, innovative business leaders look to predictive trend spotting in order to figure out what consumers will want next. Predictive trend spotting is a smart way to gain an advantage in an increasingly crowded global marketplace.

Identifying the Characteristics of a True Trend

It can be tricky to discern between a trend and a short-lived fad. As you work toward your Doctorate of Business Administration degree, you will learn that true trends tend to exhibit the following characteristics:

• Usefulness: Fads tend to have little lasting value, but trends (such as hybrid cars, for instance) will remain useful to consumers for a long time.
• Broad appeal: When new technologies are introduced, they tend to be expensive, which limits their appeal. A lasting trend will remain appealing to a wide range of consumers as the technology is refined and the price point drops.
• Complementary: Lasting trends tend to mesh well with other trends. For example, spreadsheet computer programs made tax software programs possible, and both of them have endured for years.

Exploring Consumer Behavior

When marketing executives need to study consumer behavior, they often turn to big data analytics. Big data analytics are useful at providing insights about consumer behavior derived from a large set of data. However, technical analysis is self-limiting. That is because it can only give you forecasting about trends that have already become popular. The goal of predictive trend spotting is forecasting indicators of what will become popular soon.

Predictive trend analysis is related basic principles of consumer behavior and psychology. What drives people to buy a product? What basic needs and wants are they trying to fulfill? In other words, instead of asking yourself, “What are consumers buying right now?” you should be asking, “What motivates consumers to buy hot products?” Gaining an understanding of those motivations is helpful in predicting future trends.

Looking Beyond Market Research

Market research is an important tool that drives many successful marketing campaigns. Yet, like big data, it is limited to analyzing current trends. If you want to succeed in predicting trends, you need to be looking forward, not backward.

One way to accomplish this is to think outside your industry and your niche. After all consumers purchase goods and services from an array of industries. Figure out what is trending in those other industries, even if they are not directly related to your industry. How can you transfer those trends to your own industry?

You can gain a solid framework in advanced marketing principles when you join the College of Doctoral Studies at Grand Canyon University Graduates of our Doctor of Business Administration with an Emphasis in Marketing program will emerge with a keen understanding of global integrated enterprises, consumer behavior and data-driven marketing processes needed to become a forward-thinking business leader. To learn more, visit our website or fill out the Request More Information button on this page.