Industry Trend Research Tools

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

Industry trend reports

Industry trend reports are in-depth studies of each industry and are highly valuable. Industry trend reports can be very expensive to subscribe to. However, many of them have newsletters as well as subscription models.

• They provide not only consumer reports, but industry reports as well. They generally publish industry reports quarterly, which evaluate trends and shifts.
• These reports are very thorough, but they’ll probably set you back a few thousand dollars.
• These are UK-based and, much like Euromonitor and Hoovers, they do quarterly industry trend reports that are fantastically thorough, but costly.

Industry newsletters and publications

Newsletters and blogs can be a great way to get free and up-to-date information, as well as be notified on reports you may want to spend money on. You can go down two paths when looking for these:

• Independent newsletters and publications. Depending on your industry, you’ll need to search around for these. You can try klear.com and Search.
• Consulting groups. Depending on your industry, there are some consulting groups that specialize in creating industry studies. You can find many of these through your social listening and search, as people often share what they’re reading and lead you there.

Tech newsletters

Sometimes your industry may lag a little bit behind when it comes to looking at emerging trends in tech and culture. So it’s also very helpful to follow along with general technology newsletters and publications, to get a sense of what is going on in the industries around you. Some of the top ones include:

• TechCrunch
• ReadWrite Web
• The Next Web
• CNet
• BBC Technology

Following industry thought leaders

You’ve probably already created a list of thought leaders that are influential to your audience, but you can expand and create more lists in other verticals.

Your industry in general

People within your own industry may not be influential to your audience, and they may even be competitors, but they may be on top of technology and trends in your industry. They could be leaders of organizations, writers for publications, and researchers or speakers.

Technology influencers list

You can also create a technology influencers list. You can find these thought leaders on Klear.com, you can scan Twitter for existing lists of thought leaders, and you can watch on social listening tools for mentions and re-tweets of articles by thought leaders that you may have missed before.

Google news alerts

You can create a Google news alert by identifying keywords used by journalists when talking about innovation in your industry. Each industry is a little bit different. However, once you start reading more newsletters and following more thought leaders, you’ll get a better sense of the kind of language used that you should follow.