The Right Demographic?
What I’m about to say may go against the grain of everything you’ve been taught or have been doing. Please bear with me with an open mind.
It’s time for local radio account executives to quit peddling ‘demographics’ as the reason advertisers should buy their stations.
In his ground breaking Twelve Causes of Advertising Failure, Roy Williams says, “The importance of qualitative data has been grossly overestimated by many advertisers and media professionals. In reality, saying the wrong thing has killed far more ad campaigns than reaching the wrong people. It is amazing how many people become “the right people”, when you are saying the right thing.”
‘ Demographics’ focus largely on age, sex, and income as if the values, personalities, interests and lifestyles of a particular age or sex precludes them from being a prospect.
While that may have been true in the 50’s and 60’s, the demographic lifestyle differences have become increasingly blurred over the last few decades.
For example, the 50’s mantra that the man was the breadwinner and mom was the primary homemaker is no longer true. In fact, the latest U.S. Census Bureau statistics reveal that fathers in the U.S. are the primary care givers for one out of every four pre-schoolers.
And I’ll bet a minimum of 25% of your audience is a prospect for any local business in your market. Further more, I’ll bet that 25% of your reach is a huge number of prospects from any advertiser’s perspective. Add to that figure the fact that a substantial portion of your audience may act as key influencers for prospects, and there are very few ‘wrong’ people on any station.
I talked to a marketer of heavy construction equipment last week. In the old days, they would have targeted very senior male construction company presidents. Today they say their customers cover the spectrum of men and women from 22 to 62 years of age….not much of a narrow demographic segmentation there.
Another reason it’s time to quit selling demographics is we usually grasp at the demographics straw in an attempt to sell against other stations. At the last station-hosted advertiser seminar I facilitated, one advertiser asked, “which station has the right demo for me? They all claim to have the right demo”.
These demographic claims are met with suspicion or create confusion for many of your prospects.
In a rapidly changing media landscape, it makes far more sense to focus on messages targeting psychographics rather than demographics. Centering your presentation on the advertiser’s message is congruent with a customer-focused selling approach, while demographics resort to a station-focused sales pitch.
Your message should talk to psychographics (personality, values, interests, lifestyles) rather than demographics.