Understanding customer demographics is important when it comes to determining the success of any marketing campaign for business. In a volatile industry such as cannabis, businesses should always be on the lookout for new ways to promote their products and reach out to new customers. Knowing your cannabis consumer demographics is one way you can do this.
Demographics will help you identify each member of your market according to their characteristics, motivation to use, and overall attitude towards cannabis use.
This article will discuss the various reasons why you should be doing consumer demographics research in marketing your products and how it can help you reach your business goals faster. Read on.
Market Segmentation
Consumer demographics research is important because it can help you segment your customers according to their characteristics and what drives them to use cannabis. By doing so, you can adjust your marketing tactics to address those characteristics and needs.
Dividing your target market into smaller groups, based on shared characteristics is called market segmentation. Some of these characteristics include:
●Age
●Gender
●Race
●Marital status
●Employment
●Income
●Educational background
●and others
When you can identify your market according to these characteristics, you can inform your marketing and advertising strategies and create campaigns based on data.
With the data, you can customize your product presentation, distribution channel, marketing message, and price to grab the attention and meet the specific needs of your segmented group.
Psychographics is different from demographics. Demographic data is a quantitative method of measurement or analysis, while psychographics is qualitative data.
Psychographic characteristics include:
●Personality
●Lifestyle
●Social Status
●Activities, Interests, Opinions (AIO)
●Attitude
By Age or Generation Segmentation
Understanding age or generational characteristics is important because different generations have different sets of beliefs and attitudes towards cannabis.
For instance, just as Millenials have a different way of speaking compared to Baby Boomers, they also have different buying habits. Their attitude towards the use and legalization of cannabis for recreational and medical use can also be starkly different.
By Gender Segmentation
Males and females have different beliefs towards cannabis, and this is evident in the distribution of cannabis use between these genders. Knowing which group uses cannabis more will help you focus and refocus your marketing messages.
By Ethnicity Segmentation
People from different ethnic backgrounds have different characteristics. The population of these groups also differs in certain areas. If you have a brick-and-mortar store with one ethnic group more dominant in numbers than the others, understanding their belief system is crucial to your marketing plans.
By Marital Status Segmentation
Married people have different priorities than single individuals. These groups can also view cannabis use differently.
By Employment Status
It’s easy to create marketing strategies based on stereotypes. You shouldn’t however. If you do, you might find yourself marketing to the wrong group. That’s why getting a cannabis consumer demographics report before planning your marketing and advertising approach is important.
By Income Segmentation
People with different incomes have different buying characteristics. The more you know about buying characteristics of your market, the better you can target your marketing strategies towards that group.
By Educational Background Segmentation
The public population is widely educated to stay away from drugs. The narrative for cannabis is changing due to its legalization. Knowing how your target market perceives cannabis use will be crucial to your marketing and advertising campaigns.
The Impact of Cannabis Laws in Marketing
The legal status of cannabis in the United States has evolved rapidly over the past few decades. Cannabis is now legal for recreational use in 10 states, and medical use in 33 states.
Its legalization has changed the way people think about cannabis. However, despite legalization in several individual states and the increasingly positive public reception, cannabis is still federally illegal, which can impact your marketing efforts.
The federal government classifies marijuana as a highly addictive drug, along with cocaine and heroin, the federal government views them as drugs with no medical value.
Being lumped with cocaine and heroin doesn’t bode well for the cannabis industry. And though cannabis laws are changing and there are more calls to legalize the drug, marketing cannabis is still fraught with economic dangers.
The Future of Cannabis Marketing
Cannabis marketing is a hot topic in the marketing world. As more and more states are legalizing cannabis, marketers are looking for ways to promote their products without running afoul of federal law.
There are many challenges that lie ahead for cannabis marketers, but the future looks promising thanks to social media and the Internet. Marketing cannabis to the world has become easier.
Need Cannabis Consumer Demographics Research?
If you need in-depth demographics research, the ISA Group provides cannabis research solutions for your marketing needs. Aside from cannabis research, we specialize in custom business research, data collection, qualitative research, and academic research.
Get in touch with us today to discuss your research needs. We will be glad to assist you.