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MAY 2008 W5 ALERT Do You Think You Know Your Customers? Are You Sure?? New research says electronics customer demographics may be changing
<eMarketer><May 28, 2008>eMarketer reported today that a new study from Scarborough Research has identified a type of consumer that they call a “digitally savvy” customer. Why should you care? Because if the Scarborough study is accurate...we may not know our own customers as well as we thought we did! The new report, called “Understanding the Digital Savvy Consumer,” provides insight into those consumers who exhibit higher-than-average ownership of certain consumer electronics devices such as DVRs, satellite radio, VoIP and who engages in certain Internet activities such as blogging, downloading music and gaming.
It is quite possible that this definition goes a long way towards describing the primary target customer for many of us in the specialty electronics or custom integration segment of the industry. The survey results, which can be seen in the chart accompanying this article, makes very clear a demographic that is probably significantly different from one that we would have used historically to describe our customer as recently as five years ago.
Robbing the Cradle
First of all, the digitally savvy customer is younger. Whereas in the past, many in the specialty electronics industry targeted that 40-60 year old age group…it may be time to adjust our aim! 77% of digitally savvy consumers are under the age of 45 years old. In fact, a full 53%, or more than half of them, are under the age of 35 years old! The largest grouping, age 25-34 is 31% of the digital savvy category.
Big Brain Trust
And this group in educated…68% of them have gone to college. Not only that, but 16% of the digitally savvy group enrolled in postgraduate studies and a full 13% of them graduated with an advanced graduate degree.
 No Trust Fund Required
Earning power for the digitally savvy group is equally impressive, with 36% earning more than $100,000 per year. The largest income range was the $75,000 to 99,999 group with 21% of the overall group in this high earning range.
The Scarborough Research report provides other clues that suggest that this group may be a target for those of us in the specialty electronics channel. Scarborough discovered that:
• The digitally savvy were 56% more likely to own or lease a luxury vehicle
• They were 175% more likely to have spent $500 or more on business clothing in the last year
• They are 49% more likely to own a second home
If you haven’t taken a close look at YOUR customer lately, you may be losing business. If in fact your customer demographics are changing…and you aren't changing with them...you are at risk of losing their business. You MUST change the way you market to reach the right customer demographic with the right message at the right time! |
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