Demographics is primarily used within B2C (Business to Consumer) marketing). At The Marketing Compass, we are often asked how to use demographics to improve marketing results. By thinking in terms of demographics, you can create offers, headlines, advertisements, web pages, events and entire marketing campaigns which are aimed at distinct groups of consumers. This will help you to improve your marketing results. Demographics are part of the market segmentation process. The benefits of segmentation include improving your copywriting, as it is easier to write for a ‘group of people with shared needs’.
If you sell to consumers (the ‘general public’), the factors to consider include:
Age
Can you define age brackets for the people you are marketing to? For example 18 – 25 or 50 plus. (Beware of this approach, as it can be too simplistic).
Gender
Are you selling to just men or just women? If you are selling to both, are your products / services more relevant to men or to women?
Socio-economic group
Can you define your customers in this way? For example, ABC1 (upmarket).
Geographical location
Are you selling locally, regionally, nationally, in certain countries or globally?
Life stage
For example, empty nesters (the children have left home). This can be more helpful than simply defining people by age. (Do you know anyone who is 30+ and still living with their parents / parent?)
Psychographics
This approach attempts to profile the way in which people think. Factors include personal values, beliefs, opinions and attitudes.
What specific need or needs do you have the solution for?
The above should form part of your marketing plan. Thinking in terms of customer segments will help you to decide where to focus your marketing messages and your communication style.
Naturally, just by being in business, people from different segments will want to do business with you. That’s fine. By all means take their money. However, one transaction doesn’t mean that you have to add a new target market segment to your marketing plan, does it?
Read more about market segmentation here.
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