How to Research Industry Trends in 2026: A Step-by-Step Guide for Leaders

Executive Summary: How to Research Industry Trends in 7 Steps

1. Define the Industry Scope & Decision: Anchor your research with precision. Learn how a single, well-written scope statement prevents wasted hours and ensures every dataset aligns with your business question.
2. Set Up Your Research Toolkit: Assemble a professional-grade toolkit. Discover how pairing TreendFeedr, Google Trends, and Semrush/Similarweb builds a 360-degree view of innovation, funding, demand, and competition.
3. Discover Industry Trends: Turn data into discovery. Use tools like TrendFeedr’s 200+ mega-trend map and Google Trends comparisons to identify real momentum.
4. Quantify Momentum & Signals: Put numbers behind every intuition. Build a trend metrics sheet that scores each trend by innovation density, demand velocity, and market traction.
5. Map the Competitive & Category Landscape: Spot who’s winning the narrative. Visualize leaders, challengers, and niche players through growth quadrants and audience-overlap data.
6. Validate Durability & Maturity: Separate lasting trends from short-term buzz. Measure trend age, company maturity, and patent velocity using TrendFeedr and global IP databases.
7. Prioritize & Score Your Trends: Convert insight into action. Apply weighted scoring to rank your top 3-5 invest-worthy trends with clear evidence and next-step rationale.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are the best places to start when researching industry trends?

Begin with a general landscape check, then move to specialized tools. For innovation-heavy signals, startups, and emerging tech, use tools like TrendFeedr to scan technologies, companies, and trend reports. This gives you macro context and granular, early-signal proof.

What frameworks and metrics should be used for analyzing industry trends?

Pair classic frameworks with hard metrics. Use PESTEL to capture external forces like policy, tech, and regulation, and Porter’s Five Forces to assess industry structure, then quantify with market size/growth, share shifts, search interest, and funding/patent signals from platforms like TrendFeedr

7-Step Guide: How to Research Industry Trends

Conventionally, trend analysis relies on quarterly reports, opinion surveys, or a few trusted experts. While useful, those methods are slow, siloed, and often outdated by the time decisions are made. They also missed real-time signals like emerging startups, funding surges, or sudden demand spikes.

With tools like TrendFeedr, Google Trends (for demand shifts), and Semrush or Similarweb (for competitive mapping), you can track the real momentum of trends. In this guide, you’ll learn a 7-step, hands-on process to research industry trends for you to make confident, evidence-backed decisions.

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Step 1: Define the Industry Scope and Decision

Start with what industry you’re researching, where it operates, and what decision your insights will inform. Getting this right keeps every dataset consistent and prevents misleading analysis later.

Start by naming your primary industry and any adjacent segments you’ll track. For instance, studying EV charging infrastructure might include energy storage systems as an adjacent area. Clarify your position in the value chain (manufacturing, distribution, or end use) and note whether your focus is B2B or B2C.

Next, fix your geography. Markets vary by regulation and demand, so define them precisely. For example, the United States and Canada, or India and Southeast Asia.

Then write one clear decision statement to guide the research, such as

• “Should we launch a new product line in Germany next year?”
• “Is a mid-tier pricing model feasible for the Indian EV market?”

To standardize your scope, look up the NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) code at Census.gov/NAICS or NAICS.com.

Search your keyword (eg, “electric vehicle charging”) to find the relevant 2-, 4-, and 6-digit codes. Using the right code ensures every dataset, i.e., from revenue to firm count, will refer to the same industry definition.

With that code in hand, visit IBISWorld or Statista to pull a quick baseline:

• Market definition and segmentation
• Current and historical size, CAGR, and key drivers
• Number of firms or establishments

If you don’t have paid access, start with public data from the US Census Bureau or the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Finally, summarize your findings in one short brief:

• Industry: EV Charging Infrastructure (primary); Energy Storage (adjacent)
• Geography: United States & Canada
• Decision: Pricing strategy for EV equipment in India by 2028
• NAICS codes: 221117, 221118
• Market size: USD 4.2 billion (2024), 18 % CAGR
• Sources: IBISWorld, Statista, Census.gov

Step 2: Set Up Your Research Toolkit

Once your industry scope is clear, the next step is to prepare the research environment you’ll use to collect consistent, comparable data. This step is entirely about choosing, configuring, and testing the tools that will power your analysis before identifying trends.

Start with TrendFeedr – an all-in-one trend analysis platform featuring 20K+ innovation and technology topics. Use its detailed trend page to explore each trend in depth.

You can review key investors, associated companies, and the latest news while tracking data on trend scale, growth trajectory, financial health, staffing insights, and global search activity.

To capture a demand baseline, use Google Trends. Enter your main industry topic (eg, “EV charging”), choose the topic suggestion rather than a plain keyword, and set a five-year view.

Export the Interest Over Time and Interest by Region charts as your demand charts; these give you a starting benchmark for public interest.

Finally, prepare your competitive map with Semrush Market Explorer or Similarweb. Input your company or a known competitor, add a few peers, and export the growth quadrant view. This shows market size, share, and traffic growth across domains, which is your baseline for later competitive analysis.

At this point, you’re simply ensuring that all sources, like innovation, funding, demand, and competition, are connected, filtered, and exportable.

With these four assets in place, you’re ready to move from setup to discovery in the next step.

By the end of this step, you should have four snapshots ready:

• Innovation Sheet: Record top trending technologies, patent activity, funding activity, and top companies from TrendFeedr.
• Funding Sheet: Include recently funded companies.
• Demand Charts: Find interest-over-time and by-region visuals from Google Trends.
• Competitive Map: Growth quadrant or category breakdown from Semrush or Similarweb.

Step 3: Discover Industry Trends

In this step, the goal is to build a data-backed long list of 5 to 10 emerging trends that fit your Step 1 scope and show clear momentum across innovation and demand.

Begin with tools like TrendFeedr to identify where innovation activity is intensifying. Get an in-depth view of each trend – including key investors, associated companies, latest news, and data on trend scale, growth trajectory, and financial health.

Review related trends to understand how each development connects within the wider innovation landscape. This helps you see which technologies are expanding fastest and which clusters of innovation are forming around your target sector.

Next, explore trend clustering to move from high-level patterns to specific drivers. For instance, TrendFeedr organizes more than 200 large topic clusters by industry and technology to drill down from broad themes like mobility or sustainability to individual companies advancing those areas.

Compare trends to benchmark each trend on key metrics like maturity, growth rate, and funding. Combine these analytics with innovation reports for qualitative context on startups and emerging technologies.

Next, open Google Trends to validate market interest. Search each trend technology, select the topic version when available, and keep the same geography and time range for consistency.

Compare to test naming variants, for example, “solid-state battery” vs “SSLb,” and see which draws steadier or rising attention. Note the Interest Over Time trajectory and the Interest by Region breakdown.

Now cross-reference the two streams. A viable trend shows both strong innovation signals from TrendFeedr and sustained or rising public interest from Google Trends. Drop any trend that lacks evidence on either side.

By the end of this step, you’ll have an evidence-based trend shortlist summarizing:

• Trend Name – From Trend Intelligence database
• Why Now – Funding, patent, or news momentum
• Interest Direction – Up or flat or down + top regions
• Representative Startups – Two to three examples.

Step 4: Quantify Momentum and Signals

Measure how fast each trend is growing and how strong its supporting signals are. The goal is to build a Trend Metrics Sheet. It is a single, data-driven scorecard that shows which trends are accelerating steadily, which are stabilizing, and which are losing steam.

Create a table with your shortlisted trends as rows and four analytical dimensions as columns, such as:

• Interest velocity that reflects public awareness, which is measured through Google Trends.
• Market traction that gauges category size and growth using Semrush or Similarweb.
• Innovation Density to quantify startup activity, funding, and patents using TrendFeedr.
• Player signals that capture tangible proof points like a Series A funding, strategic partnership, or product launch.

Together, these four pillars help you see which trends have both momentum and real-world validation behind them.

Next, normalize your data to a 24 to 36-month window so that all metrics are measured on comparable terms. Express every metric as a percentage growth or change over time. Such as

• ((Average Index 2025 – Average Index 2022) / Average Index 2022) x 100 for interest
• ((Total Funding 2025 / Total Funding 2022) – 1) x 100 for innovation capital.

Once you have growth values, assign weights to each dimension based on its relevance, for instance, Innovation Density (30%), Market Traction (25%), Interest Velocity (25%), and Player Signals (20%).

Scoring each trend on a 1 to 5 scale per metric and multiplying by the assigned weight will give you a composite Momentum Index.

Then, visualize your data to make insights easy to interpret. Use:

• Radar charts to compare performance across dimensions
• Bubble charts to plot growth rate versus market share (with bubble size representing funding volume)
• Heatmaps to highlight top and bottom performers.

Visualization transforms complex metrics into clear narratives that help you instantly spot which trends are surging, stabilizing, or fading.

Finally, interpret your results and classify each trend by signal strength.

• Accelerating Momentum: Trends with over 25% growth in at least two dimensions.
• Stable: Trends growing 10 to 25%
• Volatile: Trends showing fluctuating or negative patterns

Summarize each with one concise takeaway. For eg, “Predictive Maintenance AI shows +38% YoY search growth and +52% funding growth across 45 startups, which signals sustained innovation and adoption momentum.”

By the end of this step, you’ll have a quantified trend scorecard-a consolidated table ranking all your shortlisted trends by momentum and maturity. This scorecard includes:

• • Weighted growth scores across Interest, Market, Innovation, and Player metrics
  • Visual charts comparing how trends perform against one another
  • Classifications such as “accelerating,” “stable,” or “volatile” to guide decisions

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Step 5: Map the Competitive and Category Landscape

With your quantified trend data in place, the next step is to understand who is shaping those trends in the market. This step will reveal which companies lead the narrative, where challengers are gaining traction, and how category growth is distributed across traffic channels and audience networks.

Start with tools like Semrush Market Explorer to translate your trend metrics into market positions.

• Enter a representative keyword or domain related to one of your top-performing trends (eg, a company leading in solid-state batteries or predictive maintenance AI).
• Review the Market Overview to assess:
  • Total category size
  • Overall market traffic
  • Distribution of key competitors

• Analyze the Growth Quadrant, which visually maps competitors by:
  • Traffic volume (size)
  • Traffic growth rate (momentum)
• Understand the four-quadrant classifications:
  • Leaders- large and stable players dominating the category
  • Established Players – consistent but slower-growing companies
  • Game Changers – smaller companies showing rapid acceleration
  • Niche Players – specialists succeeding in focused or emerging sub-trends

Plot your shortlisted trend categories here to see which companies occupy each quadrant, how fast they’re growing, and whether the pattern aligns with your Step 4 momentum scores.

Next, turn to Similarweb to understand how those players attract and retain their audiences. Enter each major domain from your Semrush list into website analysis and review the traffic sources report. This breakdown – direct, search, referral, and social and reveals each player’s dominant acquisition strategy.

A heavy direct-to-traffic ratio signals strong brand pull, a high search share indicates content-led growth, and large referral inputs point to active partnerships or ecosystems.

Then, use Audience Overlap to compare up to five competitors at once and see how their visitors intersect. Overlaps suggest mature competition for the same audience, while gaps highlight untapped opportunity spaces where new entrants or product variants can gain attention.

Check referral paths to identify which websites or networks send traffic to these companies. It often uncovers influencers, publishers, or affiliate partners you can engage.

For sectors where engagement happens on specialized platforms, extend your analysis with category-specific tools. In app-driven industries, use data.ai (App Annie) to benchmark downloads, retention, and user ratings across competitors.

In B2B SaaS or enterprise software, explore G2 or Capterra to assess competitor review volume, satisfaction scores, and perception of key features. For e-commerce verticals, check Amazon Best Sellers to spot which brands consistently dominate rankings and which new entrants are accelerating.

By the end of this step, you’ll have a 360° competitive intelligence snapshot connecting your quantified trend data with real company behavior. Your summary should capture:

• Top Players: 5 to 10 domains categorized as Leaders, Established, Game Changers, or Niche.
• Traffic & Growth: Market share, total traffic, and YoY growth rates
• Channel Strategy: Audience sources, overlap percentages, and referral networks.
• Ecosystem Clues: Influencers, partners, or referral sites fueling competitor growth

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Step 6: Validate Durability and Maturity

After mapping competitors and market activity, the next step is to determine which trends will endure long-term versus those driven by short-term hype. This step evaluates whether each shortlisted trend shows sustained innovation, investment, and adoption over time.

Start with TrendFeedr, which provides specialized indicators for measuring trend durability and maturity:

• Trend Age – Combine the average age of organizations in the trend with the age of news coverage. This helps identify how long the trend has been active and whether it’s gaining steady traction or fading after early excitement.
• Company Maturity – Reflects how advanced the organizations within the trend are across company stages (from early startups to established firms). A balanced mix of young and mature companies indicates a stable ecosystem, while a concentration of early-stage firms signals experimentation or volatility.

On the detailed trend page, check the growth trajectory, financial health, key investors, and geographic spread to verify that activity continues over time.

Trends showing multi-year startup formation, distributed participation across regions, and repeat investor backing demonstrate lasting confidence and scalability.

Next, cross-check these signals with patent data from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Look for consistent growth in patent filings across countries, which signals commercial intent and technological depth that are key signs of durability.

Then, assess maturity level using frameworks such as the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies. Identify whether the trend sits in early experimentation or near productivity. Support this with consulting insights from McKinsey, Deloitte, or Bain to highlight adoption barriers, like regulation, infrastructure, or skills, that may impact growth.

Finally, summarize your findings in a concise validation memo for each trend, including:

• Trend Age & Company Maturity (from TrendFeedr)
• Patent Activity (volume, geography, growth trend)
• Maturity Stage (from Gartner or consulting frameworks)
• Enablers & Constraints (eg, regulation, talent, infrastructure)
• Verdict – Durable (invest), Moderate (watch), or Hype (deprioritize)

Step 7: Prioritize and Validate Your Trends

This final step brings your industry trend research to completion by identifying the top three to five trends most worth your organization’s focus and resources. After gathering and validating data across innovation, demand, and maturity, this stage helps you decide which trends to invest in now, which to monitor, and why those choices make business sense.

Start by consolidating all the quantitative and qualitative data from previous steps into a scoring template. List your five to ten shortlisted trends as rows and create columns for evaluation criteria such as innovation momentum, interest growth, demand and competition, strategic fit, and risk.

You can set this up easily in Excel or Google Sheets using a 1-5 or 1-10 scale, assigning weights to each factor based on importance – for instance, Innovation Momentum (30%), Interest Growth (25%), Demand and Competition (25%), Strategic Fit (15%), and Risk (5%).

Next, populate the scores using the metrics gathered earlier. Draw from TrendFeedr for innovation and funding signals, Google Trends for public interest trajectories, and Semrush or Similarweb for demand and competitive strength.

Add short rationales beside each score to make your reasoning transparent, such as “Strong patent growth and steady investor funding” or “Moderate interest increase but limited regional traction.”

Once all criteria are scored, calculate the weighted totals and rank the trends from highest to lowest. The top three to five trends become your priority investment opportunities, while the remaining ones move to a watch list. For each trend, write a short decision note summarizing:

• Why it ranks where it does
• Evidence supporting the score (eg, funding growth, new startups, or sustained adoption)
• Next actions (eg, launch pilot, conduct deeper market analysis)

For trends placed on the watch list, record the reasons they weren’t prioritized- such as low demand, uncertain regulations, or high capital intensity and note what future developments (policy changes, cost reductions, or new entrants) could make them viable later.

Finally, compile your results into a concise Trend Prioritization Summary Sheet that highlights:

• Trend Name
• Weighted Score
• Status: Invest or Watch
• One-line Rationale

Example:

• Solid-State Batteries – Invest: High startup formation, strong patent acceleration, and improving cost structure.
• V2G Home Chargers – Watch: Demand rising, but regulatory adoption uneven across markets.

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