Small Business Customer Demographics

Knowing which customer demographics are right for your small business can make or break your marketing campaigns. Always make sure you know who you are targeting!

Most small business owners have an idea of who their customers are, but most never dig deep enough to know how to use that knowledge. Figuring out your customer demographic is just the first step!

Recently I have noticed that there are more and more commercials targeting baby boomers who are still vital and doing things. The reason that I notice this is that they are advertising in places I go and have images that are attractive to me. One that springs to mind is Chase, who is using a cute couple who are clever and funny and who travel a lot. Chase was also the first advertiser that the New York Times signed up for advertising on the iPad.

So why do the Chase people work on me? They are somewhat affluent, they are childless in the commercials (people without children in the house have more disposable income!), and they are on the newspaper sites and TV channels I watch.

This multiple channel effect is called layering and can be done even on a little small business marketing budget! Think about sending a postcard with a marketing message, having it in your newsletter, posting about it for a week on Facebook, Tweeting it and also talking about it all month at networking. If you don't think that will make an impact on your sphere, I don't know what will!

The next time you think a commercial is stupid, ask yourself if it was targeted to your demographic. I was riding in the car with my husband the other day and a hill-billy sounding guy came on the radio and said inane things in his southern accent and at the end whipped out a Geico ad. REALLY? Men want to buy insurance from a hick? Well is that any worse than the fact that I have been won over by the repetition of the Rockwell song from my teens (Somebody's Watching Me) paired with the stack of money that Geico uses to hook middle aged drivers?

Here are some tips for how to use Small Business Customer Demographics:

• The next time you are going to launch a marketing plan, make sure you figure out who your client is and target those types of people
• Fiind a big company that targets the same type of person and copy them. See what their message says, what images they are using and what media they are on.
• Make sure you know whether you are targeting business-to-business or business-to-consumer as the sales message is VERY different.
• Set up your marketing plan with a layering effect in mind to get the most bang for your buck!