Trend analysis can help you keep up with shifting consumer demands, shifts in your industry’s competitive landscape or economic changes that impact how people buy what you sell. Whether it’s an upward trend like the popularity of quiet luxury or a seasonal pattern, staying ahead of shifts can inform smarter product development, messaging and marketing strategies.
The first step in performing a market trend analysis is to define the objective and scope of the investigation. This can be as simple as setting measurable goals or determining which categories of data to collect. Defining these parameters will ensure that the research is relevant to your business goals and that you’re getting the most out of it.
In a more technical sense, a market trend refers to the direction of an asset or security’s price movement over time. There are a variety of tools and techniques that analysts use to identify trends, including the Relative Strength Index (RSI), moving averages and trend lines. Trend lines are straight lines that connect a series of price points—highs and lows—and extend into the future to act as levels of support or resistance for price movements.
In addition to pricing trends, there are also cultural and technological signals to track. For example, the popularity of Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant, may signal a desire for more convenient, hands-free experiences or to find solutions to common problems like eczema. These are important signals to track, because if you miss them, you could end up with a brand that fails to resonate with consumers or misreads the moment—like promoting luxury travel when consumers are focused on cost-of-living concerns, or touting work hustle culture when burnout and wellness are top of mind.