Even though marketing campaigns are made to attract all kinds of users, a single campaign is not enough to draw good numbers of traffic. Every user or customer has different interest and identifying the similarities or understanding the differences is the key here. This method allows you to isolate the market into several individual categories and utilize the selling points. It makes your campaign more effective and precise since you can focus on serving smaller segments.
There are four types of marketing segmentation, such as - Demographic, Psychographic, Geographic, and Behavioral. The following content focuses on the characteristics and features of Demographic Segmentation.
What does Demographic Segmentation mean?
Demographic Segmentation divides the market into smaller segments considering demographic factors like age, gender and earning. This helps to find and focus on the resources in the defined group without reaching an entire market. Dividing the market into smaller segments allows the company to utilize the time and resources more efficiently. With a better understanding of the perspective of the market, it is easy to fulfil the needs of the targeted groups.
This method is widely used because it is easy to acquire with the help of census data, consumer insights, and analytics software. It is the cheapest and the most convenient way to divide the target market.
Why is it so important?
This method allows for increasing the ROI or Return On Investment of the company drastically. The email marketers have witnessed a 76% increase in revenue by dividing the target market into smaller segments. There are some other benefits too, like –
Long-lasting customer relationships:
Since this method allows you to connect on a more human level, it creates deeper customer loyalty. The segmented market helps to listen to more of the customers and their requirements. As a result, they are more likely to do business with you for a longer period.
Improve your products and services:
Having a better and loyal customer relationship helps to work on your products and services to make them more customer-friendly. You can look at your products from the perspective of different kinds of customers.
Optimize your marketing strategies:
Demographic Segmentation allows making your marketing campaigns more specific and clarifies your vision of marketing. You can optimize your time, budget, and resources. For example, if the majority of your target audience belongs to the younger generation, making a campaign for older people will be a waste.
What are the variables of Demographic Segmentation?
Age:
Age is the most basic and the most important variable of all. It is because the consumers’ preferences continually change with age. Top brands usually target age-specific audiences to arrange effective marketing campaigns. This variable can be viewed as life cycle stages like - babies, children, adolescents, adults, middle-age, and seniors.
For example, in the fashion industry, designers have different collections to target different age groups. Aiming for certain clothing for specific age ranges is the key here that makes a successful promotion of the brand.
The age segmentation can be generation-based as well as baby boomers, gen X, millennials, etc. The members of each generation act and think differently but the members of the same group and generation share similarities.
So, targeting all the generations with the same offer can come up with undesirable results. Different age groups and generations have different buying habits. Focusing on their preferences can help you to understand what kind of products go well with which group.
Gender:
Usually, men and women have different choices, likes, dislikes, and even thought processes. For instance, few men like to apply makeup and most of the women don’t wear boxers. Understanding the common factors and marketing accordingly is the key.
When you are creating a campaign, tags like ‘for women’ and ‘for men’ can specifically target your audience through gender-specific marketing.
But be careful not to assume any gender stereotypes. Such as considering pink as a feminine color and blue to be masculine color can make your brand appear sexist. This can make you lose potential customers. So make sure you do not annoy any community.
Income and occupation:
If people can’t afford your product or services, making a campaign and targeting them will not work. After all, you would not promote a Ferrari for someone who is looking for a budget-friendly car. Income bases targeting helps you to analyze and measure the buying power of the target audience.
When you understand the income range of the consumers, you can understand how people spend money on the higher and lower spectrum. For example, the airlines have three classes for the passengers - economy, business class, and first-class. Job oriented segmentation works in the special cases of promoting something employee-friendly.
For example, if you are making a campaign for an application that corrects your grammar, the target audience should be writers, not engineers.
Ethnicity and religion:
Ethnicity, nationality, race and religion can be key factors for a business that is globally expanded. Different communities have different cultures which reflect through their habit, preference, and belief. Segmenting them into smaller portions can bring a huge change in your sales.
For example, Coca-Cola and Pepsi, both companies advertise globally but they also localize their campaign country-wise or more specifically region wise.
