Can Microtrends Tell You Where Your Market Is Heading? by Rachelle Money, 20 May 2008

A good keyword researcher spots emerging market trends before the rest of us. How do they do it? Not just by doing keyword research, but by keeping tabs on all sorts of published information. One such publication that caught our eye was Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes by Mark J Penn, the man who coined the phrase ‘soccer moms’ for Bill Clinton. In his book he draws on years of experience to describe over 240 emerging market trends. It contains enough inspiration and ideas to kick start any online marketing campaign.

There are so many reasons why this book should be a turn-off. To begin with, its title "Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Today’s Big Changes", is hardly what you would call exciting or attention grabbing. Secondly, it’s a big black hardback, a 425-page doorstopper - a quick flick and you’ll see line graphs, tables, maps and the odd pie chart colored in various shades of gray. We’re forgetting something though - one should never judge a book by its appearance.

On the face of it, this book promised to be one of the driest and most boring reads on the market, but the pleasant surprise is that it’s probably one of the best books I’ve read this year. Penn uses good humor and bags of personality to contextualize statistics and trends for the ordinary person.

Boasting endorsements from two of the world’s most influential people, you can’t help but sit up and take notice of this book. It’s little wonder that Bill Gates and Bill Clinton praise the author of Microtrends - Mark J Penn - for his insightful and colorful approach to emerging trends in America. But then again, they were his employers at one time..

The book itself is split into 15 chapters, each with four or five sub-chapters tracing the development of modern trends emerging in work life, education, fashion, technology and politics. Microtrends in whatever area of commerce or culture influence search behavior and can provide a window into emerging niches. As these new trends come into view you should optimize where possible to ensure you are casting your net wide enough to catch these customers. You may even want to take this a step forward and create a new website.

Penn in his introduction says trend-spotting is not only important for providing information to the politicians who run our country, and to marketing executives who want to identify niches to sell to. It also helps inform and sculpt the direction some sections of our society are moving in.

Microtrends could easily be perceived as just another buzzword for us to get to grips with, and some may miss the point entirely and see microtrends as a pretentious word to replace 'fad'. Let us leave it to Penn to explain exactly what a microtrend is: "In today’s splintered society, if you want to operate successfully, you have to understand the intense identity groups that are growing and moving, fast and furious in crisscrossing directions. That is microtrends... A microtrend is an intense identity group, that is growing, which has needs and wants unmet by the current crop of companies, marketers, policy makers, and others who would influence society’s behavior."

There are times when Penn adds his own thoughts to the book which means his anecdotes act as real life illustrations of the statistics and trends he discusses. For example, in his chapter ‘Office Romances’ he says: “I’m the CEO of a public relations firm and the president of a consulting firm. I am proud to say we have had several interoffice marriages that started as office romances.”

Penn peppers the book with lots of little references to his personal experiences and observations. At times he goes further and uses reference points that most people will be able to relate to - a Woody Allen film, the Oprah Winfrey show, and even Bob Dylan and Angelina Jolie make an appearance or two.

Penn has built a career on trend-spotting. He has spent more than three decades as an advisor and polling analyst for Mr and Mrs Clinton amongst others, as well as advising companies like Microsoft and BP. The New York Times described him as "the guru of small things" because of his ability to find and expose the smallest niche groups.

It’s clear he soaks up every poll published. Much of his book sites statistics collated by government departments or academics. He also uses statistics from polls conducted by newspapers, magazines and websites, and therein lies a problem. Surveys are notoriously complex to decipher and a margin for error must be noted. This is not to say Penn’s sources are invaluable but a note of caution on how reliable these straw polls are should be taken into consideration.

There are few topics left untouched by Penn and his co-author Kinney Zalesne. Whether it’s the nation’s lack of sleep, the rise in the number of Americans getting tattoos, dropping out of college, or even the number of vegan children in the US - few stones are left unturned. Although Penn does concentrate most of the book on fluffy lifestyle tales of internet dating, video game playing grown-ups, and stay at home workers, there are moments in this book which may just spark a business idea.

Men are more likely to buy gadgets than women, right? Wrong, says Penn. In the chapter ‘Tech Fatales’, Penn highlights an interesting new trend which contradicts our assumption that men make more technology purchases. He points out that women outspend men on technology 3 to 2, and that women influence 57% of technology purchases. This means that women, or ‘Tech Fatales’ as Penn calls them, have considerable spending power. They influenced $90bn of technology purchases in 2006 alone. Penn also says that girls are more likely than boys to use cell phones, digital cameras, satellite radios and DVD recorders.

Even though the statistics are clear, it seems that manufacturers and retailers are late in catching up with this new trend. According to Penn, almost 75% of women say they’re patronized, ignored or offended by the sales people in electronics stores, with 40% saying they were treated better if accompanied by a man. This proves there is still a lot of work to be done by retailers on how they sell to women.

Women’s spending power should never be underestimated. Women love accessories like bags, shoes, jewelery, and now this is extending to accessories for their laptop, cell phone and PDA. Penn says ‘bling kits’ (stick-on crystals) for cell phones have been flying off the shelves. However, he says that this area of the market is "deeply underserved." He goes on to say: "If you are a Tech Fatale, you are not alone - you are just waiting for someone out there to hear you."

Could you or your business fill this gap in the Tech Fatale market?

Any book worth its salt generates discussion. Even if you get only one good idea from it, it’ll be worth the cover price. Whether Microtrends provides ideas and discussion is up to you as a reader. One thing it does do is make you sound clever. I’ve been introduced to a whole host of buzzwords like Cougars (a self-assured woman who dates younger men), Momtrepreneurs (a mother who runs her own business) and Unisexuals (those who completely reject the notion of gender lines).

After reading one chapter I guarantee you will find yourself saying things like; "did you know the average American sleeps for less than seven hours a night? Or that one in three Americans in their mid-20s are college dropouts, or that in the last two decades the number of Americans classed as obese has doubled?"

There are plenty of little nuggets of information to dig out but the question Penn doesn’t fulfill in his book is what’s next? Once we are armed with this information what do we do with it, how do we treat it? Can a microtrend change or be stopped in its tracks? This is where the book falls down. There is also a point to be made about Microtrends’ shelf life. A trend today could fizzle out tomorrow, so we should perhaps treat Penn’s work as a series of little snapshots of what is, what was, and what might be in the future.

Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Today’s Big Changes by Mark J Penn with E. Kinney Zalesne, published by Penguin Books.

For more on keyword niches have a look at Why SEO For Profit Must Target Groups Of Keywords and Identify And Exploit Niche Markets.