Every year, you read predictions about the next year’s trends in almost any industry. Everyone seems to say virtually the same thing. Are they all correct, or could they be missing out on something big?
In this podcast, Rohit Bhargava, author of the book Non-Obvious, self-styled “trend curator” and founder of Influential Marketing Group, shares his insights about the future of marketing and how you can take advantage of it. He draws conclusions that do not always run with the conventional trend-spotters, but his sharp eye for a pattern establishes his credibility.
Each year for the past six years, he has published his Non-Obvious Trend Report, a list of 15 trends he cultivates through a year of careful analysis. He opens up to Byron White, CEO of WriterAccess and host of the Writer Podcast about the latest trends rocking the marketing world, and how people can become trend curators themselves.
Listen to this podcast to learn:
- Why the most shockingly effective marketing trends do not always require a complete pivot of the business plan
- The dangers of ignoring things that are not obvious when crafting a marketing strategy
- Why gathering hay is better than searching for a needle, when trying to determine what is likely to come next in your industry
- Ideal ways to identify momentum in marketing styles
- How the future of writing may be unexpectedly bright
Quotes from this podcast:
On the impotency of trend-spotting:
“I think anyone who reads trends predictions at the end of every year is surrounded by the obvious. We have a bunch of people saying the same thing and saying nothing.”
On the importance of watching acceleration:
“What I really look for is acceleration. Acceleration means to look at what’s going on in the present and predict what’s going to accelerate about the present. Trend curation instead of trend-spotting is all about intersections between industries.”
On failing to recognize your target demographics’ current needs:
“When you take a message that is so perfectly oblivious to what people are thinking now, it demonstrates how out-of-touch you are. The danger of this from a communication point of view is that people say, ‘If you don’t understand this, why should I do business with you?’”
To learn more about how you can train your eyes to see where your marketing strategy will take you, check out this non-obvious podcast with Rohit Bhargava.
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