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Demographics for Dummies

Demographics are one of, if not the most, important components to consider when crafting your marketing message.

Businesses use demographics to better understand their customer base, allowing them to make more informed marketing decisions, and to paint a picture of their target market.

What are demographics, exactly?
Demographics can be defined as statistical data relating to the population and particular groups within it. In other words, demographics are simply descriptions of specific sets of people, oftentimes broken down by category.


The term “demographics” doesn’t belong exclusively to marketing. Heck - it doesn’t even belong exclusively to humans - but for the sake of this article, we’ll be referring to demographics in terms of people, and how it pertains to your marketing efforts.

So, what types of demographics are used in marketing?
In short, a ton. In long, it really depends on your industry. That being said, there are plenty of standard demographic metrics that are used consistently across industries.


Non exclusively, this list includes:

- Age
- Gender
- Income
- Marital Status
- Education
- Location
- Race
- Ethnicity
- Occupation
- Family Structure
- Accessing Device

How to use demographics for marketing

Demographics are used in a handful of marketing practices, and play a critical role in many marketing decisions.

  • Persona creation
    Oftentimes, a marketer may choose to build a marketing “persona”. This is a fictional character that holds all of the demographic traits that make up your target audiences. This practice can be helpful in a sense that it puts a personality to a data set.

    Having a defined marketing persona helps in writing effective ad copy, determining your ad targeting, and crafting your overall message. Some of your products may have just one marketing persona, or multiple.
  • Social Media Voice
    Knowing who your customer base is at a highly granular level can significantly help you develop a relevant social media strategy. Your social media is a direct representation of your brand, and can be the most effective communication tool if implemented correctly. An irrelevant social media voice will fail to connect with your intended audience.
  • Business Plan
    Better understanding of your customer demographics can help you build out different components of your business plan. From manufacturing to employee benefits, your customer demographic can play a much more significant role than just marketing.

Where can I find my demographics?
Almost every digital medium provides at least some level of demographic data. Accessing different platforms’ demographic data comes with varying levels of difficulty, and varying levels of granularity. At Cruxdata.io, we combine all of your platform’s into one easy to read, sortable dashboard.

Demographic Segmentation

Using the different types of demographics listed above, you can create different segments of potential customers based on traits that they share. This allows you to target portions of your customer base based on
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IN SHORT
Google Analytics is one of the most valuable website tools ever created. It's both free and powerful - however many small business owners aren't taking advantage of all that Google Analytics has to offer. Given the amount of data and advanced features Google Analytics provides, it can be quite overwhelming to some small business owners. Cruxdata organizes and simplifies your Google Analytics data. Easily compares your website data alongside data from your social media accounts and SEO tools, all in an easy to read set of dashboards designed to help you make quick data-backed decisions for your marketing efforts.

Preston Derrick

co-founder