Depending on who you talk to, the economy is either well on track to a recovery, or is on the verge of the next BIG downturn.  Some people say this downturn will be bigger than the last one we just went through.

To me, one of the tell-tale signs of the REAL economy is the spending going on.

Go to a shopping mall on the weekend – if there are lots of people there with bags in their hands, money is being spent.  Mall empty?  Or just full of browsers and not buyers?  Not good.

There is some GOOD new among the highly affluent though – they are spending.

Some recent research came out from Pamela Danzinger of Unity Marketing.  If you don’t know of Pamela, you should.  Her company specializes in the spending habits of the affluent.

Her recent research findings:

“Affluent consumer confidence is splitting according to income.  Those with incomes of $250,000 or more and called ultra-affluents (which represent the top 2 percent of U.S. households or about 2.5 million households) increased their spending on luxury by 22.6 percent, while the lower income ‘aspirational’ affluents with incomes between $100,000-$249,999 increased their spending by only 1.9 percent from fourth quarter 2009 to first quarter 2010.”

“The aspirational affluents which make up some 21 million households are going back to acting like middle-class rather than luxury class consumers. This shift will have significant impact on luxury marketers and retailers revenues over the next six to nine months,” Danziger warns.

“The latest luxury tracking survey shows that the ultra-affluents are spending at pre-recession levels, while the aspirational consumers are holding back.  But even with their exuberant amounts of spending, the ultra-affluents can’t sustain recovery in the luxury market alone.  In order to generate real growth in the luxury market, marketers and retailers are going to have to entice the aspirationals back to spending.  So far aspirationals are holding back.”

What does it mean for you?

2 things it could mean:

* If you have a product or service that COULD be sold to the highly affluent – now is the time to act.  Is there any possible way you can create the ultimate high end bundle that could be sold for 10X the price (and 100X the value) of what you sell now?  Think hard here.  I am willing to bet that if you put pen to paper, and get yourself locked away for a few hours without distraction, you can find some ideas floating around.  All it takes is a slant on an old idea, made to fit a new industry. much like the Million Dollar Lobster Report I wrote.  They took a commodity type business, repositioned and repackaged it, and sold memberships to the affluent.  Read that report if you haven’t yet… soooo many ideas in there. After you read it – immediately put your ideas down on paper.

* The second thing you can do with this information is to take the comment here to heart: “ entice the aspirationals back to spending.” They are the majority of the affluent. Their numbers are staggering.  And right now they aren’t spending.  They are looking for a company they can connect with. A company with personality that actually DOES care about them.  How do you do this?  You have to learn how to create rock-solid bonds with your clients.  I call it Marketing Velcro and you will hear from about this system soon.  Think about ways you can make that customer relationship sticky like velcro.  Things you can do to get them talking about you. Things you can do to

Both are fantastic opportunities for the astute marketer.

Question is… will you take the research and do something with it?

Or let a MAJOR opportunity pass you by?