By Bob Barker

The long-term trend prediction is dead. If you take a good look at all the trend conversations out there you quickly realise that anything and everything has been predicted for 2011. The problem is that this content is far too broad. None of it gives you real-time insight into customer behaviour and attitudes. Our society is now 24/7 and highly individualistic, making long-term predictions pretty implausible.

A great example of this is the talk around the rise of micro-blogging in 2011, whilst at the same time some commentators are predicting consumers will be de-teching next year! It looks more like tech-schizophrenia and shows exactly why brands need to focus their attention on gathering insight on their individual consumers.

Alterian’s research has highlighted that in just four months there have been nearly 300,000 online mentions on the subject of trends; proving that while trend predictions may be a Christmas tradition the amount of information and its breadth greatly reduces its strategic value.

Long live insight

However, all is not lost for the industry commentator, they will just need to work harder. With consumers demanding more individual contact from brands, it is becoming more difficult to lump them into big amorphous groups. 2011 will be the year of insight. With more time spent on in-house customer analysis, organizations will develop insight into individual customer behaviour and use this information to more effectively engage with their customers.

We know from experience that insight works. Recently Alterian tracked sentiment around the X-Factor, correctly predicting the outcome based on level of noise and consumer sentiment. A lot more work went into that analysis than many of this month’s trend predictions, but it paid dividends in showing how robust data and analysis can give spot on predictions. Sentiment fluctuated week on week during the competition, highlighting how the long-term trend has died a death and just how on the ball companies need to be in tracking customer sentiment.

The CMO is the person within an organisation that should have the tools and skills to give valuable insight into customer wants, needs and behaviours. With all this in mind Alterian is happy to predict that 2011 will see organisations working to aggregate information from across the business, breaking down silos and building ever-changing profiles of customers; allowing them to predict real-time behavior rather than making long-term trend predictions.

While we are loving all the predictions for 2011 we also need to be pragmatic about how useful they are. Time is better spent working with your marketing team to understand what is happening in your business now and working out how best to engage with individual customers rather than worrying about the macro trends that may or may not happen. Only then can you make the changes you need to your business to build on your successes.

About the author

Bob Barker is VP Corporate Marketing at Alterian.

About Alterian

Alterian (LSE: ALN) aims to enable organizations to create relevant, effective and engaging experiences with their customers and prospects through social, digital, and traditional marketing channels. Alterian’s Customer Engagement solutions are focused on four main areas: Social Media, Web Content Management, Email, and Campaign Management & Analytics. Alterian technology is utilized either to address a specific marketing challenge or as part of an integrated marketing platform, with analytics and customer engagement with the individual at the heart of everything. Working alongside a rich ecosystem of partners, Alterian delivers its software as a service or on premise. For more information about Alterian visit www.alterian.com or the Alterian blog at www.engagingtimes.com.