Posts Tagged ‘trends research’

the value of trend research

January 8, 2012
What’s the value of trend research?


Do you know how much of an advantage it is for your finances and your business if you position yourself to benefit from emerging trends? For instance, some investors noticed the rising risk in real estate markets by 2003. However, many of those that did not follow accurate forecasts lost hundreds of thousands of dollars because they did not invest in accurate forecasts and then follow those forecasts. For many people, hundreds of thousands of dollars is how much difference it can make to invest in accurate forecasts and follow them.

Who publicly forecast the following major developments first:
J.R. Fibonacci or Gerald Celente?

what                     who 1st                 when     who else              when             

real estate prices will plummet J.R.                 Mar03     Gerald Celente       Dec04
credit crisis causing financial meltdown J.R.   Mar03     Gerald Celente     Dec06
global fuel prices will spike      J.R.                 Nov04      Gerald Celente     never?   
online advertising will pass TV The Guardian  Sep09      J.R.                     Dec11                           
 

In 2009, spending for online advertising in the UK passed spending for TV advertising for the first time. In 2010, spending for online advertising in the US passed spending for newspaper advertising for the first time.
How much are you investing in where the global economy is going? By the way, the global economy actually did not decline much if any. However, it did shift significantly. Some places had unusual declines (like Arizona and Greece) while others did relatively well (like Arabia and Alaska and Alberta, which are all major oil-producing regions).

So, there was a sudden redistribution of affluence away from the US and EU toward places like China and the OPEC nations. Also, as fuel prices have been rising, there has been a shift of business away from time-consuming shopping at retail stores toward shopping online and of course online advertising.
How about this? 100 years ago, no one did business over the phone. Either people mailed a paper check or paid in person, right? However, now there are TV infomercials and entire TV channels dedicated to getting people to place orders by phone. 100 years ago, there were almost no phones and certainly no way to make a payment over the phone!

Now, think back to how much business you have done on the phone in the last ten years (from ordering flowers to paying monthly bills to buying plane tickets). Consider that you may have spent more money on the phone in just the last year than you spent on the phone in the entire 20th century. Well, now consider that in some industries, online transactions already exceed not only phone orders, but in-person retail purchases, too!

Even just 10 years from now, most business may be conducted through the internet in some places. Many businesses now do not even accept checks, but only electronic payments by debit or credit. In other words,  some do not even accept cash… because they do not have a physical retail store.

Consider some of the leading businesses of recent years: Microsoft, Google, eBay and Amazon. Have you ever walked in to one of their stores? Have you ever even seen a store for them?

Maybe you do not know yet how much money people have spent with those businesses online. Not only are people moving from checks toward cash and from cash toward credit and debit cards, but many of the fastest-growing businesses are moving from cashiers to online order forms and electronic shopping carts.

As for the growing market in online advertising, the fastest growing type of online advertising is currently online videos, (up 300% in a single year in the UK) while websites set up for display on the handheld screens of mobile phones may be the next wave of growth. Where will your business be?

Of the time that people in the US spend on media, the total of that time that goes to newspapers has fallen to 4%, but newspapers still receive 15% of the advertising revenue. Overall in the US, people more than twice as much time on the internet using mobile devices than they do with newspapers, but only a tiny fraction of all marketing budgets in the US currently target internet users accessing websites by mobile phone.

100 years ago, there was no TV advertising, and no radio advertising, and almost no phone book advertising. Advertising was mostly in newspapers and magazines.

In 100 years, none of those may be major forms of advertising. They all may be swallowed by internet advertising.

In 2012, online advertising in the US is expected to be triple what it was in 2006. That will be more than twice the amount spent in the US on radio advertising or magazine advertising.

In 2012, where will your business be? Will your business be where people are taking their business? How much of an advantage will it be for your finances and your business if you follow accurate forecasts of emerging trends and position yourself to be one of those who benefit most from the ongoing transition?

The founder of the Trend Research Institute, J.R. Fibonacci, was one of the first to forecast the spiking of fuel prices globally, the resulting global credit crisis and the resulting declines in real estate and stocks in the US, EU, and Japan. In 2012, for the first time ever, he and his staff will be offering brief introductory consultations to small business owners for them to be clear about the emerging opportunities and risks as the global economy continues to shift. To schedule your live videochat session now, simply contact me.
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