Demographic targeting—what is it, and why should you try it?

Demographic targeting.
What is it, and why should you try it?

When we talk about ‘demographics,’ what we mean is: human populations have statistical characteristics, and it can be useful to look at groups of people through the lens of those characteristics.

Demographic targeting is when you segment your marketing communications based on demographics. Common characteristics that are sliced up into demographics are things like age, education or occupation—these tend to be things that are easier to measure than more nebulous qualities like “goals,” “values,” or “motives,” which might instead fall under psychographics for the purposes of marketing.

As for why you should try it—well, it can be useful to have demographic information because you can use it to target your communications and improve their relevance.

We know that customers love it when we get up close and personal with them, and they’ve come to expect a certain standard of intimacy. McKinsey reports that over 70% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalised experiences and even more are frustrated when they don’t get it.

Something as simple as knowing the recipients’ occupations can seriously boost how effective your communications are. If you were to launch a campaign raising awareness about cybercrime, you’d probably approach someone you knew worked in IT a little differently than you would, say, a romance novelist—there’s a good chance that the IT worker will already have a more nuanced understanding of that topic, and probably some opinions of their own.

Demographic targeting can help you deliver a more personal and relevant message to your customers. To segment by demographic, you might consider using information like:

• Income range
• Industry classifications
• Level of educational attainment
• Professional qualifications
• Sex or gender
• Age
• Geographic location

And these are only starting points, too. If you want to really narrow and personalise your segments to supercharge your targeting, you can make sure you nail your database marketing to use individual details to your advantage and consider developing customer personas to really lock in on the factors shared by your ideal customers.