The way you or anyone can use demographics is to find out more about the target audience or people you want to reach. These could be called your public, in marketing terms. You may even look at your own invoices over the last year and determine where most of your customers are coming from. More promotion targeting this specific area makes sense.
Who are your past customers? If not a new company, who already buys your product or services? Check the competition too, to see where they get their own public from. The competition’s website gives you tons of research into what is working for others in your field.
Demographics tell you something about the public in your area, but is that your specific public—the people you want to get more of? Why find out about the trends and demographics of teenagers in your area, if you sell dentures to the elderly?
The first step in any marketing is to research and do your homework:
- What past research do you have?
- Look over any demographics of your target area, which you can get at any library or the Internet. The Chamber of Commerce or U.S. Census Bureau (or ones in many other countries) have this available for free. There are many resource textbooks. Use them to find out about your area.
- Who are the people you are currently doing business with? Where do they come from exactly? What is their profile? You need to TARGET your public in order to go after them. The more precise you get, the better it will be.
- What else do you know about your public? What is available in your area?
- Do a demographic survey in your area of target public to find out more information, as needed. This can be done in person, walking around the main business areas, grocery stores or shops, and briefly asking people a few questions.
- How old are they primarily? What sex or marital status? Do they have children? What is their average yearly income range? Are they white collar or blue-collar workers, managers or entrepreneurs? What is their education level?
These are all questions that help you more easily spot who a target public is for your business and who is NOT.