Bulletin Vol. 1 No. 3 July 2, 2002

B U L L E T I N

Tools and Resources for Data-Driven Market Research

Vol. 1 No. 3 July 2, 2002


	IN THIS ISSUE: More about you Take our July survey! Expanding a business? Use demographic profiles	Bulletin Archive

FROM THE EDITOR

MORE ABOUT YOU

In the last issue of the BULLETIN we asked you for a little more information about your businesses. What niches do our subscribers fill? Quite a variety! Here are just a few examples. Renovation of old church pews…event planning…personal coaching…marketing support for insurance agents… dog grooming… business research… lawn care… massage therapy… consultants of many stripes. Some of you are active in manufacturing; others in retail trade. Many offer business services but consumer services are represented as well.

What is your trade area? Respondents serving a national customer base made up the largest single category, but more than half of the respondents indicated a smaller trade area, as this figure shows.

Respondents were equally split between consumer and business markets served. But even in this sense you are hard to classify. About 1 in 10 who serve businesses are dedicated to helping small/home office clients. Of those who serve consumers, about 1 in 10 are focused on serving professional, academic, or entrepreneurial clients. In other words, in today’s business arena, there is no hard-and-fast line between "businesses" and "consumers", and why should there be. I know I want good value for my money, and a good customer experience, whether I am shopping for my business or for my family. Don’t you?

SURVEY

PLEASE TAKE OUR SHORT SURVEY

Don't worry, none of the questions are hard. Your responses will help us help other business people.
Please click here to participate.

TELL A FRIEND

You can help the BULLETIN grow with just one click. Click here to send the link to this issue to a friend or colleague.

I look forward to your feedback. Click here to write to me and I will try to respond promptly.

Best regards,
Sarah White, Editor, the Bulletin
Third Wave Research

TO CHANGE YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS OR TO UNSUBSCRIBE

ABOUT THIRD WAVE RESEARCH

The BULLETIN is published occasionally by Madison, Wisconsin-based Third Wave Research. Editor Sarah White and other associates of Third Wave Research write articles that appear in bCentral's "Demographics" and "Market Research" topic areas. For information about Third Wave Research's services, click here.

OUR SPONSORS

Businesses like yours reach prospects nationwide by sponsoring the BULLETIN. Put your message where interested small business people will see it. If you are interested in purchasing a sponsor message, e-mail the editor.

TOOL BITS

EXPANDING A BUSINESS? USE DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILES

Robert owns a travel-oriented book and gift store in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He is interested in expanding into other cities; he even has a manager, Maxie, who is willing to help him by moving to a new town to start up a second store. But where should they expand?

Robert and Maxie know that demographic factors have played a role in the success of their first store. From simple observation, they know their customers are mature, well-educated, upper income, and probably have professional-level jobs. The store is near a college; it is likely that many of the customers are faculty or staff at the school. You might think they would get plenty of students, too, but that is not the case. Robert and Maxie think that is because of their price points and the ambience they have created in the store. They are not serving the extreme adventurers or the "Europe on $10 a day" crowd. Rather, they are catering to business travelers, cruisers, villa-renters - individuals with the taste and means to enjoy high-end travel.

Maxie came up with a starting point – she listed a number of cities she would not mind living in. Then she and Robert sat down at a computer and logged on to Third Wave’s Market Research Tools. First, they used Demographic Profiler to draw a profile of Cedar Rapids. This would be the benchmark against which they would judge other candidates. "Cedar Rapids has been good for us," they agreed, "so let’s find another town that’s demographically similar. If it’s got a similar population, we can probably assume what we offer will go over about the same there as it has here.”

Robert and Maxie decided that the key demographic variables worth studying were educational attainment, occupation, household income, and age of householder. The cities on Maxie’s list included Champaign-Urbana (IL), Lafayette (IN), Madison (WI), and Ann Arbor (MI). They looked at demographic profiles for each community. Here is what they found:

City	Education Some College	Occupation White Collar	Household Income $50-75K	Age of Householder 35-44
Cedar Rapids (Benchmark)	31.9%	67.3%	27.3%	22.4%
Champaign-Urbana	27.1%	67.0%	17.5%	19.8%
Lafayette	23.5%	59.1%	20.6%	19.6%
Madison	30.2%	69.8%	25.7%	22.9%
Ann Arbor	29.0%	64.3%	22.6%	23.6%

Some of the data surprised Maxie and Robert but overall, the picture of their ideal town was fairly clear. The majority of the population would be fairly well educated, white-collar, middle class, and middle aged. Champaign-Urbana would be stricken from the list – that community skewed a little too low in terms of income and age. Likewise, Lafayette skewed toward a younger and less educated population. The other two communities seemed like fair candidates to support their business. How to decide?

Maxie and Robert compared the total population count on each of their metropolitan area reports. The population of Madison is 433,012; Ann Arbor 584,422. "Let’s go where the people are," said Maxie. "I’m moving to Ann Arbor."

QUICK FACTS ABOUT SMALL BUSINESSES

Thanks to www.entreworld.org

Businesses with fewer than 500 employees numbered about 5.4 million in 1995. Another 10 million report being self employed as their primary employment. (SBA Office of Advocacy)

As of 1999, there were 9.1 million women-owned businesses of all sizes. (National Foundation of Women Business Owners)

One in five women-owned firms is owned by a woman or women of color. (Center for Women’s Business Research)

SPONSOR MESSAGES

Focus Forward Coaching
Take action to overcome career and life obstacles. E-mail Felicia at focusforwardnow@msn.com for a complimentary 30-minute coaching session to get unstuck.

why2.org - The Accessibility Portal
WHY2 has developed a system to incorporate an expanded, yet simple to use, business technology that results in growth within existing markets and encourages growth targeted at 50 million virtually overlooked customers. Wise marketers will prepare their businesses to capitalize on this large and growing market by focusing strategies on this market's needs and preferences. To find out more, click here.

Third Wave Research offers a service that takes the names of your current customers, merges and matches them with our master database of all businesses, and finds new prospects who look like your best customers. The result is a highly targeted mail or telemarketing list. Interested? Contact us.