Who, What, How: Marketing Research in Search Engines - Who
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My first step is to determine the “who” of my marketing plan. Who am I going to sell my product to? I want to determine who is currently playing computer games to decide if they are the demographic I want to go for. To find some statistics on this, I go to Google (http://www.google.com), and type in computer gaming marketing. One of the first resources that comes up is Ziff Davis Media Game Group Marketing (http://gamegroup.ziffdavis.com/about/cgw.html), so I visit that site. It turns out to be a media kit for a leading computer gaming magazine, Computer Gaming Monthly.
A media kit is basically a sales sheet for printed publications. It typically offers prices for advertising, and the demographics of their magazines. Media kits are a goldmine for demographics; many major publications pay marketing firms thousands of dollars for brand and market research, and then the information is all offered for free online.
In the third paragraph down on the page, I’ve unearthed my first diamond from the dirt:
“The CGW reader is older (late twenties), educated, technologically-oriented, affluent and sophisticated.”
This gives me a broad stroke of a demographic that is approximately 25 to 33 years old. To dig a little deeper, I decide to go to the bottom of the page and click on their PDF media kit. Sifting through this information, I find a goldmine on page 3 of the PDF.
Mean Income: $81,000
Average Age: 33 yrs
Male: 96%
Married: 48%
Average Games Owned: 60
I’ve just broadened my demographic to males between the ages of 25 to 33 years old who are already game players.
To truly verify my demographic, I’m going to look a little bit more. This time, I’m going to go to Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com), and type in PC gaming. One of the first results I find is IGN.com (http://pc.ign.com). In the bottom navigation bar, there’s an Advertise link. That takes you to IGN’s Media Kit. On the first page, there’s a link to Audience Overview.
This page takes me to another wealth of potential marketing information. This tells me that the average age of IGN.com’s visitor is 22 years old, with 37% of their visitors falling into the 18-24 years, and 29% in the 25+ year category. It also states that 91% of their visitors are male.
Between these two resources, I’ve decided to use the following as my key demographic for my marketing plan:
Males, age 20-33, who are current game players.
Next: Putting the "Who" into Action >>
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