Curating Consumer Trends

When the term “curate” shifted from the art world to the aisles of Home Goods, a general sigh of annoyance emitted from the marketing world as a useful and purposeful word “jumped the shark.”

Yet, despite our collective tiredness of social influencers “curating their feeds,” the reality is we live in an age where the proliferation of choice creates even greater demand for guidance as consumers finding their way amid an often-overwhelming amount of services and products.

Consumer expectations are that businesses – B2B, B2C, &B2G – are responsive to their needs and wants, whether they expressed them to you directly or not.

We are awash in numbers that show us click-thrus, likes, CPCs, and more. All of these numbers are important and play a key role in understanding customer behavior and campaign performance— but they all leave out the voice-of-the-customer (VOC).

The differentiator for businesses desiring to leverage customer demand/consumer trends is the need for integrating research practices into your evaluation and decision-making process.

Curating consumer trends requires an understanding of both quantitative and qualitative data driving behavior or interest.

A conversational dialog is not an abstract concept in an online setting. It can be tracked, measured, and analyzed. Ignoring this data creates a preventable blind spot in your strategic marketing efforts and customer relationship management.

You can’t manage what you can’t measure.

We believe that analyzing VOC data can help identify trends that would otherwise be neglected or lost. With trends identified, staff can more readily identify the rapidly accelerating opportunities or threats inside any business.

To become an effective curator of trends, professionals need to do three things well:

1. Be Curious– always asking “why” and improving your knowledge by investigating and asking questions.
2. Be Observant– learning to notice the small details that others may ignore or fail to recognize as significant.
3. Be Meaningful– take the time to study those details to create a simple and understandable point-of-view without bias.

This skillset, when amplified by a VOC dataset that can be culled and refined for actionable business intelligence, creates an informed, effective, and creative business leader.

To “stay ahead of the curve” means having the ability to anticipate the market. How companies “read the horizon” can make a tremendous difference in their effectiveness in leading and/or impacting the market.

Demonstrating the discipline needed to be curious, observance and meaningful is an important skill set that serves businesses across every sector. Just as understanding your customer is a measure no business or sector, can forgo for any extended period of time, without feeling the consequences in the bottom line, membership, and market relevance.

Show your customer that you know them by anticipating their needs. Become a curator of trends that are reflective of the market and grounded in VOC data. No photo filter required.