I received a call from a pollster the other night. They
asked all kinds of questions about my background and my voting tendencies. At
the end of the conversation, the lady on the other end of the phone thanked me
for my responses, but said they had enough of my particular demographic for
their study. Demographics are used in marketing all the time. Their benefit is
never more evident than in an election cycle. Different people groupings are
polled for likely tendencies. You can slice it up by gender, religion, ethnic
background, race, age, socio-economic status, union/non-union… you name it,
there is a demographic study for nearly every people grouping under the sun.
Are you using demographics in your business? The first place
you should consider using a demographic study is with your own customers
compared with your sales staff. I had a former boss who would often say, "You
attract what you are.” There is a lot of truth to this. It has been a few
decades since I last sat in a sociology class, but I do remember that people
tend to hang out with others who are like them. If your customers are 50+
Caucasian men, my suspicion is you have a salesperson who is a 50+ Caucasian
man (or a 20 something female salesperson who keeps the attention of the 50+
men… another topic for another time.)
However, there are other areas where you should be using
demographics in your marketing efforts. By the time most people reach the age
of 20-25, their values have been set for life. Some experts would argue that
this happens much earlier. All I know is that what is important for the rest of
our lives is set by age 25. We call the age of 20-25 the coming of age period
of life. Unless something major happens to us, we have made up our mind on our
base values. We know what we like and what we don’t like. When you are
marketing to a group of people from the same age demographic, we can typically
determine how to advertise to them by determining what was important in their
coming of age period of life. Who they idolize as a hero and who they disdain
as a villain is determined in this time period. So if you were going to
advertise to a person who is an American who is 70-75 years old and you wanted
them to have good feelings, you could show them video clips of Marlon Brando,
John F. Kennedy and Elvis Presley. What do the three of them have in common?
They were all heroes if you were coming of age in 1960. If you wanted to reach
a group from the age of 45-50, show them a clip of Steve Martin, Ronald Reagan
and Michael Jackson. They were all heroes if you were coming of age in 1985.
You can be most effective in catching the attention of an age demographic if
you advertise to their coming of age period.
You
may be thinking that we live in a much more open and accepting society that has
laid the old groupings aside. In our complex, multi-cultural world, you may
think that demographics are archaic. They are not. If anything, they are more
relevant today than ever before. I was speaking with a friend the other day.
His company is owned by a Swiss corporation that has holdings worldwide. He
often is dealing with colleagues who are European or Indian. He told me a story
of a co-worker from India who wanted to fit into the American scene. He hit a
few bars in a very seedy side of town wearing a silk disco shirt and too much
Aqua Velva. My friend tried to explain that he was fishing in the wrong pond if
he was looking for a good time. "I do not understand,” was his reply. Of course
not, because what is deemed socially acceptable to my friend (45 year old
American male) and his coworker (29 year old Indian male) are a product of both
of their coming of age periods – in different age periods and in different
continents. With companies competing globally, it is imperative that you
understand what is important or not important to your audience. If you can
understand this, you will know how to effectively target your marketing
efforts.