A demographic survey collects background information on your respondents, such as age, gender, ethnicity, employment and marital status, etc.
This data can help you build accurate buyer personas and segment your audience. You’ll tailor your offering and communication to your customers’ needs.
Demographic questions are often included in different survey types, such as buyer persona survey or market research surveys. However, standalone demographic surveys come in handy to profile a specific chunk of your audience – e.g., those who complete a checkout process or buy your highest subscription plan.
You need to know who your audience is to grow a successful business.
If you understand your customers, you can provide just the products and services they want and all company communication to their preferences.
Are you sure your initial assumptions about who uses your product or services are in line with reality?
A demographic survey will let you verify if your product and communication target the right people.
Customer segmentation lets you track patterns in the answers of different customer groups, which means you can communicate with them more accurately.
For example, finding out which features of your products resonate the most with digital marketers will tell you what you should highlight in the marketing campaigns targetting this group.
The demographic survey questions aim to discover the essential characteristics of your audience. They’re usually close-ended, single- or multiple-choice questions. This standardized form makes them easier to respond to and analyze.
Here are some demographic survey question examples:
1. “What is your age?”
The most basic demographic survey question for effective audience segmentation. Commonly, different age groups have vastly different responses to different products and messages.
The answers options to this question should depend on your target audience. (The age brackets will look different if you cater to young adults than when you cater to seniors.) However, you should always start with “under X” and “over Y” answer options to cover all age groups.
2. “What’s your gender?”
Another basic demographic question that helps in effective market segmentation. It’s good practice always to leave an “I’d rather not say” or “Other” answer option next to “Male” and “Female.”
3. “What’s your ethnicity?”
A common question for in-depth demographic surveys. Considering its sensitivity, make sure you need this information before you include the question in your survey. It might be enough to focus on your respondents’ location.
4. “Where are you located?”
Use this question to confront the answers with data from your analytics tool or obtain detailed information (like zip code, if you’re a local business).
5. “What’s the highest level of school you have completed?”
This question pairs well with questions about marital and employment status. Together, they let you assume the socioeconomic status of your audience. It will also help you adjust your communication style to your audience’s preference.
6. “What’s your marital status?”
The knowledge of customers’ marital status is valuable for B2C companies – those married with children often need different products and services than single people.
7. “What’s your employment status/current position?”
The question about employment status helps B2C businesses predict their audiences’ purchasing power. B2B businesses should ask the respondents about their current position to tailor communication and services to particular niches and occupations.
Demographic survey questions usually ask your audience for sensitive information. To maximize response rates and make sure your respondents remain comfortable, follow these demographic survey best practices:
Mix and match the demographic survey questions above depending on your needs – or just use the ready-to-go survey template above.
With Survicate, you can have your demographic survey up and running in no time.
Click the button above the page (next to the template's preview) and sign up with your business email. By doing so, you're signing up for a Flexible account. You can use our tool for free until you collect 100 responses.
You can use the demographic survey template as-is or change the questions and survey design according to your needs.
Once your survey is ready, choose the distribution channel best suited to your needs. Do you want to run a demographic survey as a part of an email campaign? Do you need to trigger a website survey on a specific page to learn more about its visitors? Or maybe you want to launch a survey in your web app or mobile app to investigate who uses your new feature?
You can also integrate Surivcate with your favorite tools – such as email software for easier email distribution or a collaboration tool for notifications on new responses.
Once the answers start coming in, you can access them in your analytics dashboard. You’ll be able to see the response breakdown, spot the trends in the answers to open-ended questions, and export the data.
But the best way to see how Survicate works is to try it out yourself. Sign up now!
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