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Why demographics are useless in the real world
Okay, I don't mean to say they are TOTALLY useless, but demographics form only part of the picture when you are defining your target markets. After I tweeted my last post title, "Twitter demos remain female, young, shifting toward African American," I got a response from @madmain (a white "adult" ad guy on Twitter) that said, "Yep! That's me alright!" And I turned a little red, at least in a virtual sense. Because he made an excellent point: when it comes to products that are lifecycle oriented (diapers, college loans, rascal scooters) demos might be relevant. But not all products can be easily segmented this way and not all target markets are so easy to pigeonhole.
So why do we keep doing it? Well, first of all, it's human nature to name, label, tag, organize, categorize, understand and control. It's part of the job of being at the top of the food chain. But the practical answer is that when it comes to identifying our target markets, there are only a few ways they are "findable." One of those ways is by their demographics and another way is by the media they use. The fact that Twitter users use Twitter probably says a whole lot more about them than their demographics do. But what's equally interesting about the demographics is who's NOT using Twitter, or at least not to the extent that you would assume. It just goes to show that social media is resonating with a broader audience than the naysayers would suspect, that different communities are leveraging different platforms, and that the potential for this medium is in no way tapped out.
So, yes, use demographics to define your target markets. But add to that lifestyle factors, media choices, and any other key motivators of purchase for your particular product. How important a part each perspective plays in finding customers depends on your particular product. The better your understanding of your customer base on every dimension, the better shot you have at finding more customers
Twitter demos remain female, young, shifting toward African American
via Quantcast.com
