7 Demographic Marketing Examples

In marketing, professionals target audiences to show useful products to customers with interests that align with those products. There are different ways for marketers to target their audiences, like by separating their potential customers into specific categories. If you're a marketer and want to increase sales for your company, learning how to use demographic marketing can be useful for your career. In this article, we define demographic marketing and provide seven examples of demographics to which you can market and create specialized campaigns.

Related: The 4 Primary Types of Market Segments and How To Use Them

What is demographic marketing?

Demographic marketing is a type of market segmentation, which is a method of separating audiences into smaller, specific categories. You can use the unique traits of these categories to better understand how people in these demographics respond to your marketing campaigns. For example, people in different age groups may be online at different times of day, so marketers can target relevant ads to the times of day when those specific age groups are most active.

Related: Demographics vs. Psychographics in Audience Segmentation

Why is demographic marketing important?

Demographic marketing is an important form of advertising because it allows marketers to distinguish the different wants and needs of similar people within their audience base for more effective marketing. Here are some ways demographic marketing is important and can benefit your career as a marketer:

• Saves money: More direct and specific ads targeted to demographics within your audience can help you lower the cost-per-click of each online ad, which lowers the overall cost of marketing and saves money by showing ads to people who are more likely to be interested in your company.

• Converts quality leads: Demographic marketing may convert more high-quality leads for your company because potential customers who are already interested in your products can see your advertisements more easily and make a purchase or learn more information online.

• Distinguishes your brand: Many marketers make different advertisements for each demographic or interest group in their audience, which results in more specific ads that help distinguish your brand from competitors more than generic advertisements might.

• Increases loyalty: The customers you convert through demographic marketing may be more loyal to your brand because they feel heard and valued because of the specialized and individual ads they've seen online.

• Fulfills niches: Demographic marketing is important for when you want to market to a specific niche, like young parents or healthy women over a certain age, because you can use data about those demographics to create effective and appealing ads and show them at the right times of the day.

• Focuses your efforts: When you market to specific demographics, you can focus your efforts on important groups within your audience base, which may help you and your team concentrate more easily than if you tried to market to every customer in your audience at the same time.

7 examples of demographic marketing

Here are seven descriptions of demographics to which you can market and examples of how to market to each of them:

1. Age

One demographic you can consider in your marketing is the age of your customers and leads. Marketing teams often separate audiences into age groups like children, teenagers, young adults, adults and senior citizens and market age-related products to these different groups or parents of people in these age groups. With online campaigns, you can also narrow down age groups to smaller sub-sections of people who may be interested in specific products, like college students or new retirees.

Example: Your marketing team is creating a campaign for vacation packages to a new resort and creating specialized ads based on the age groups of potential customers. One of your advertisements includes a picture of two young adults on a beach, so you target this to young adults and adults online. Another advertisement mentions having fun after retirement, so your team targets senior citizens over 65 years old with this ad.

2. Gender

Gender is another common demographic to which you might target advertisements. This is because, based on market research, people of different genders may respond to certain advertisements differently because of differing needs, opinions and interests. It's important to avoid stereotypes when using gender to target your marketing. Consider narrowing your marketing demographic to be very specific to your target audience rather than making broad generalizations about women in your marketing strategies. A married, mid-40s woman in a rural town in Kentucky is going to have different experiences and needs than a married, mid-40s woman in New York City. 

Example: If your target audience is female millennials, consider your specific customer base within that demographic and maximize your presence on their preferred social media platform. Different groups of people use different social media platforms. 

Related: How To Select and Develop a Market Segmentation Strategy

3. Income level

The income level of your audience can also be a factor you consider when creating marketing campaigns. Often, this means using online data to target leads interested in items in the same price range as your company's products. You might find this data from someone's online search history and social media presence, which you can use to target them on various platforms that allow advertisements.

Example: As a marketing specialist for a car dealership, you want to market a new, expensive car model online. While you realize teenagers and young adults are interested in this car because of its new features and sleek look, you decide to market to older adults with higher incomes to increase the chances that one of your leads can afford this car and make a purchase.

4. Geographic location

Geographic location is a useful demographic you can use in your company's marketing if you have localized product discounts or run a business with a small, local audience. You can easily target potential customers by their location using data gathered from search histories and IP addresses and narrow the audience your advertisements reach by geographic boundaries. These locations can include entire countries, states or towns, or you can create your own custom boundaries for local businesses.

Example: You work with an online business that only delivers to specific countries. To target customers who can successfully make purchases from the business, you only show advertisements to customers in those countries.

5. Family structure

Family structure allows you to target leads who have different needs or wants regarding your product. This is helpful for showing ads to people with children or differing relationship statuses who might need certain products to improve their lives. Often, you can use data about someone's family structure collected from their online search history, like other demographic information, or through organic means like search engine results.

Example: A large grocery store gain asks you to create advertisements for their products based on the family structure of potential customers. You use subcategories like people with young children and single college students. The ads for people with young children feature child care products like diapers, while the ads for single college students show products like single-serve meals.

Related: What Is Organic Traffic? (Plus Tips for Increasing It)

6. Religion and ethnicity

Demographics like religion and ethnicity allow you to market to customers with specific cultural and religious needs. This may include localized advertisements for communities with many members of specific religions or ethnicities, but it's also useful to target people when you want to sell products for culturally significant or religious holidays. If you market in areas where people speak various languages, you may use these demographics to target ads in languages with which your leads are more comfortable.

Example: Ahead of the Jewish holiday Passover, , you can target Jewish customers with ads about kosher food and wine or kitchenware to serve their seder meal.

7. Occupation and education level

Marketing to the occupation and education level of customers is a great way to target people in specific industries or with educational needs. Many people add their occupation and education level to their social media accounts, and you can use these details to recommend work-related training courses or colleges for continuing their education. This technique often works best for very specific products and services relating to your customers' careers.

Example: While working for a trade school's marketing team, you target ads about courses on welding and woodworking to potential customers who have just graduated high school and work as trade apprentices.