As you undoubtably know if you are a regular reader of my HomeTrend Forecast web-based newsletter or my HomeTrend Blog, I manage a panel of trend-setting consumers -- the HomeTrend Influentials Panel (HIP). HomeTrend Influentials are home owners who like their homes to look up-to-date and like to keep their fingers on the pulse of what is new for the home. (Take the HIPster Quiz for yourself to learn more about the selection criteria that I use to find HomeTrend Influentials.)
The HIPster web site has a password-protected HIPster area (www.hipster.info) where the HIPsters can go whenever they have a question they would like to get answered by other HIPsters, when they’ve tried a new product that they want to recommend to other HIPsters, and when they want to rant or rave about a product or company. Up to now, the functionality of this web site has been pretty basic but I am in the process of taking advantage of all the progress social networking has made in the past year to make the HIPster web site state-of-the-art.
Not only will the new improved HIPster web site make it easier for the HomeTrend Influentials to form a community, it will also make it much much easier for you find out what’s on the minds of the HIPsters and keep your finger on the pulse of what these very influential consumers are doing to and buying for their homes. The new HIPster web site will enable you to monitor what these very opinionated consumers think about and are saying about your products. You’ll be able to ask the HIPsters questions and get live real time feedback from them. You’ll be able to find out what HIPsters are concerned about and what changes they are making in their food prep, household cleaning, and garment care habits and practices. You’ll be able to detect emerging trends early on while they are still in their infancy. It will be like having your own proprietary database of consumers at your disposal whenever you have a question you want to ask them or an idea you want to run by them.
So, hope is here for those of you who have been admiring what the major consumer package goods companies like Frito-Lay and Proctor and Gamble are doing with online consumer panels but figured there was no way your company could ever afford an online consumer panel of your own. You DO have an online consumer panel at your disposal. And it’s not just any old consumers, it’s HomeTrend Influentials, those consumers who pick up on new home-related trends and embrace new home goods much sooner than the rest of the U.S. population and are the bellwether for the mainstream American population. And soon, with the new and improved functionality of the HIPster web site, you’ll have all sorts of new ways to keep your finger on the pulse of these trend-setting and trend-spreading consumers. Watch for announcements in early 2008 about the new and improved HIPster web site.
If you would like to learn more about the HomeTrend Influentials Panel, click here to get your COMPLIMENTARY copy of the "Inside the Heads and Homes of HomeTrend Influentials" report.
