Demographic analysis refers to an analysis of the age, gender, race, religion, socioeconomic status, income, education, geographic location, marital status, and employment of a certain population group. Specifically, Wonder’s clients want to know the demographics of the customer base for an industry, company, or product for marketing purposes. Understanding the demographics allows marketers to gear their advertisements toward the audience that will most likely respond best.
Here is a brief video on demographics and how they might be useful for Wonder’s clients.
<aside> ⚠️ Note: Hobbies, interests, motivation, purchase habits, attitudes, beliefs, and aspirations are psychographic factors. Do not include them in the demographic analysis.
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Always start with a direct search using keywords and search strings. Use a variety of keywords for the best results. If you cannot find information through a general search, use more specific search strings, Boolean, and X-ray searches, as well as filters to pull relevant results.
<aside> 🧠 Note: Search strings and advanced search methods e.g., X-ray and Boolean search are tools, not strategies. Do not mention these in your research reports. Instead, mention the publishers of the resources, reports, and databases consulted (e.g., International Data Group (IDG)).
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Consult demographic databases based on the topic of your project. Some helpful databases and resources can be found below:
Resources for a Demographic Analysis
Data aggregators that pull data from multiple sources:
Demographics for program beneficiaries:
Look into industry-specific demographic databases e.g., health-related demographics at The DHS Program, financial demographics at FDIC, and solar power demographics at the Solar Energy Industries Association. Industry-specific databases can be found through a Google search e.g., “<industry> AND demographics.”
Other places to search for demographic information include media kits for publications as well as surveys and studies conducted by research firms such as PwC, McKinsey, Nielsen, and Pew Research.
If precompiled information is not available for one or more demographic categories, attempt to triangulate the information. For example, if one source provides the number of female luxury car buyers and another source provides the total number of luxury car buyers, you can calculate the demographic percentage by dividing the target demographic [female luxury car buyers] by the entire population [luxury car buyers] and multiplying the result by 100.
Triangulating Demographic Statistics - Example
A client asks for the percentage of sailors in the U.S. that are millennials. A source indicates there are 42,000 registered sailors in the U.S., of which 1,260 are ages 18-25, 2,940 are ages 26-35, 14,280 are ages 36-50, 12,600 are ages 51-60, and 10,920 are ages 61+. Millennials are recognized as ages 18-35.
There are 1,260 sailors ages 18-25 and 2,940 sailors ages 26-35 for a total of 4,200 people. To get the percentage of U.S. sailors that are in the millennial cohort, we would divide 4,200 (millennial sailors) by the total population of 42,000 (U.S. sailors) and multiply by 100: 4,200 / 42,000 = 0.1 x 100 = 10%
If the client wanted to know age demographics of sailors in general, we would do the same process for each age group:
Ages 18-25: 1,260 / 42,000 = 0.03 x 100 = 3%
Ages 26-35: 2,940 / 42,000 = 0.07 x 100 = 7%
Ages 36-50: 14,280 / 42,000 = 0.34 x 100 = 34%
Ages 51-60: 12,600 / 42,000 = 0.3 x 100 = 30%
Ages 61+: 10,920 / 42,000 = 0.26 x 100 = 26%
When performing triangulations, clearly write out all calculations (and assumptions, if any) for the client.