[Sigia-l] Re: audience analysis and demographics

[Eric Reiss]

Dear Peter,

Traditional market research (usually conducted by or for an
advertising agency) has two main functions:

* To ensure that advertisements speak to, are understood by, and
appeal to the desired group(s).

* To ensure that advertisements are placed in appropriate media
(which magazines, which TV shows, etc.)

Different data are needed for different tasks. Lifestyle and income
may be important if you’re selling cars, but usually less so in the
business-to-business world. Here, you are often trying to solve a
problem (acknowledged or latent) that is widely experienced by the
specific target group. And you have to know something about them. For
example, if you’re going to use an acronym like DWDM in your
headline, you want to make sure your target audience understands what
this means. Interviews and research will tell you this – if you ask
the right questions. 

Asking the right questions, though, is the key and since much
existing market research was conducted for completely different
reasons, it’s not always useful, although sometimes it will help you
define user persona.

What’s difficult to discover is how these persona will react in
different situations (looking for something specific vs. browsing;
first-time visitor or frequent user, etc.).

If people see an ad in a magazine, we know they’re reading a
magazine. If they see an ad on TV, we know what show they’re
watching. The specific medium will also provide hints as to whether
the receiver of the message is relaxing or working. Unfortunately, we
rarely know why people have voluntarily gone to our site unless we
have some fairly sophisticated site statistics and know how to
interpret them. This, too, is market research.

Is market research useful? It depends - on what was researched, how
it was researched, and why it was carried out.

Best regards,
Eric

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eric reiss
principal
e-reiss aps
copenhagen, denmark
http://www.e-reiss.com
office: (+45) 39 29 67 77
mobile: (+45) 20 12 88 44
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