Design profiles

A demographic ‘represents the specific characteristics and qualities of a population. They can be used to categorise people based on distinct criteria, like age or gender’, according to Hubspot – one of the world’s leading providers of marketing software for businesses (source).

As you can see in the linked page, Abercrombie & Fitch took a different approach when marketing to men and women, thinking about:

• Gender
• Age
• Socioeconomic status
• Religion
• Occupation
• Marital status
• Birthdays
• Location
• Lifestyle
• Values

… along with a whole host of customer behaviours such as cart abandonment and new vs repeat customers.

Simply put, marketing to both in the same way would not work. Marketing that really speaks to the needs, desires, values and challenges of the audience tends to resonate better. This is why a broad marketing message will usually fail: a business may target different customer groups, so it needs a different message for each.

This is why knowing your customers is so important! Know your customers better than the competition does and you will form lasting relationships with them.

Over to you

Like the Abercrombie & Fitch example, can you find any other instances of businesses marketing to different customer groups in a different way?

Hint: it might help if you look at the different demographic factors.

Share your thoughts with your peers in the Comments as always.