I've covered a lot of core market research terms and principles on the Drive website through our Market Research 101 category, and this post addresses another one. The term demographics in market research is one of the most well-known and widely utilized terms. Demographics are categorization titles used to describe different populations of people. Some common types of demographic data include:
- Gender
- Age
- Marital Status
- Household Income
- Ethnicity
Even location categorizations such as ZIP Codes and Census tracts are considered to be demographics. There are an endless amount of demographic categories that can be analyzed in market research. Demographics can be used for such things as purchasing targeted sample or categorizing cross-tabulations of data in a market research report (male vs. female, aged 45 and under vs. 45+, etc.)
Demographic questions in surveys are typically asked at the end of the survey script because the personal nature of the questions may make some respondents uncomfortable. By asking demographics towards the end, core data for the main questions has already been collected before the respondent has the chance to dropout of the survey. Also if the survey is done over the phone it provides the interviewer with the ability to build some rapport and a comfort level before asking personal categorization questions.
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