One of the most important task of any business is to gain a better understanding of their target audience.

Demographics: A Thing of the Past

Demographics has been the marketing instrument of defining a target audience for most of the last 100 years.  It was an attempt to cluster large groups of people into simple boxes so companies could pitch products and services.

Marketing typically divides groups according to age, gender, ethnicity, income level, etc.  These are large segments of the populations that fit a similar characteristic.

During the rise of mass communications like TV and Radio in the boom years of the 50’s and 60’s, the goal was to group people into very specific segments so they could sell advertising.

What Group Are You In?

The idea was that people of the demographic are going to have the same inclination toward products and services, therefore, market to the group.

Marketing was lumping millions of people into the same group and calling them “Baby Boomers” or “Gen-X-ers.”  This made it easier to sell stuff, because people in those groups seemed to accept the classification and “own” the identity.

With the advent of the social network and the proliferation of the internet.  Groups have become highly segmented.  It’s no long a good marketing idea to look at groups in such large demographic memes.

We are Fragments

We have become fragmented.  We have begun to migrate into smaller and smaller niches until the larger classifications really become meaningless.

If you operate a business and have defined the scope of your market to be consumers between the age of 34 – 55 with a household income over $100k and who ready online journals weekly, you have identified a market of several million.  That is a market that is too large to reach and to diverse to appreciate your goods or services.

Psychographics are the New Thing!

Today, the trend is to look at psychographic profiles.  Psychograpics looks at the beliefs, philosophy, attitudes, interst and personalities that effect a consumers tendencies toward products and services.

Instead of looking at the “group” that bought, you look at “why” they bought.  A business owner that is able to understand the things that motivate a consumer to purchase, is better able to market to that consumer.

The power of the social network is that we have an opportunity to understand the psychographic of our audience.  Instead of defining a group of 17 million consumers that may or may not have any interest in your goods, you can can define a group of 50,000 consumers that are looking for your product or service and are ready to buy.

Look at the profiles of the friends you have on your social graph.  Digest the information.  What are the common themes?  What are their common interest?  Who do they follow?

Build deep understanding of your customer, or risk the consequences.

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One of the fundamental rules of marketing or business is know your audience.  If you intend to sell a service or a product to a consumer, you MUST know the ideal consumer.  Characteristics like age, gender, income level, family status, affinity sites, etc are small pieces of demographic data that help you clearly focus on who you need to be targeting you marketing message.

Getting this data is not incredibly difficult to obtain, but most businesses fail to learn who they need to target.  This post will provide you with a couple helpful tools that will aid you in understanding your demographics better.

Compare Sites

First thing to do is find some comparable websites that do the same kind of business or offer similar services.  The objective here is find sites that will attract the same kind of audience you are looking to attract.  Google searches can help find websites that have significant traffic and significant data for you demographic study.

The Tools

Once you have your comparable sites, head over to Alexa and Quantcast to begin obtaining that valuable demographic data.  Enter one of your comparable sites in the search box at the top of the page.
Quantcast will generate data for the site you selected.  You will see site traffic values and demographic data.  The demographic data shows you gender, age, education, family, income and ethnicity.  When you compare this with all the other sites you selected, you should be able to get a good picture of the type of client you will attract to your site.

Now What?

So, Now What?  Once you have filtered through your data, you now need to use this to help focus you marketing efforts.  You need to spend your time and money marketing to people who meet your ideal client or customer.  Market to them based on your research.

If you find that people 35 to 55 are your primary demographic, do not spend your money marketing to teens or retiree’s.  You may have crossover at the upper and lower limits of your range, but your focus should be your primary demographic.

As you continue to focus on the target demographic, your marketing efforts will more laser focused and you will see a growth in revenue.  The laser approach takes time to develop and focus to maintain, but if you want the people visiting your site to engage in transactions, then make sure market according to your demographic data.

Do you have other ways you gain demographic data for your website?  Share your experience with Media317 community.