Census sensitivities: striking gold in statistical fields
It’s tempting to reel off a gilded spiel of statistics from the recent, if protracted, release of the 2006 New Zealand Census data, but percentages are funny things. Individually, they add logic and accuracy to any campaign, even Homer Simpson acknowledged that “people can come up with statistics to prove anything, eleventy percent of all people know that”. However, string statistics together and it seems the lustre dissipates. While the collective does dim the impact of the components, like too many jewels in a crown, the value does not suffer.
Marketers are most likely aware of the worth of Census data for its key information bytes, providing insight into customers; where they come from and what they ‘look’ like.
Take for example gems such as:
1. 60.5% of New Zealand households now have access to the Internet - a rate that should increase in line with household income (as demonstrated by the 2001 data in figure 1);
2. almost three quarters of our population - 74.2% - have access to a cell phone; and
3. our population’s median age has increased to 35.9 years
It is an interesting dichotomy that even though our population is growing older, we are more in-touch with technology than ever. These are only a few of the thousands of information nuggets available on New Zealand’s tech-savvy yet wizened millions.
Given that the Census is taken every five years like some kind of special-occasion for statisticians, important changes in social make-up can be seen from one Census to the next. Each new release brings significant implications for all Marketers and the tools they use to communicate with customers.
Of course, you have to see past the Census’ reputation for being dry. Its inane honesty may be hard to swallow, but there’s gold in them data hills. Prospectors have been waiting its complete arrival since late 2006.
Census information as a whole is just as useful as the components for initiatives aimed at informing businesses about their customers and their behaviour and the more jewels in the crown, the better! The applications vary, from basic profiling, through to complex predictive modelling and forecasting.
Census data can be appended to an organisation’s existing data in order to:
- Identify valuable customers for retention
- Identify the ‘right’ new customers
- Grow the value of existing customers
- Optimise the effectiveness of marketing, sales, retail and call centre channels.
Census data is in fact a simple, malleable tool that delivers depth and insight into population groups down to a meshblock level. It resonates accuracy and data integrity that is not always the case with modern market research initiatives and those subscribed to by Homer J Simpson.
Datamine recently completed a project using Census data for clothing retailer, Line 7, which resulted in customer insights based on their profiles, purchasing behaviours and relative penetration across their 15 New Zealand stores.
Using Census data, profiles were built based on demographic data and customer-spending habits were quantified in terms of time and dollars. Through this RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary) profiling, key localities of customer activity were identified and their profiles compared against the New Zealand population. This provided Line 7 with the capabilities to target their marketing campaigns and identify and profitably manage their key customer relationships.
To make Census data work for you at a basic level, consider the profile of your target market(s)– your description should include key demographic, psychographic and geographic characteristics as reflected by the new data.
It is important to realise that customer or segment profiles used to target marketing communications will be out of date and should be revised based on the new data. Similarly, any predictive models built using older Census data will be obsolete.
To enable efficient and effective target marketing, it is essential these changes are realised and tools updated – but keep in mind, it’s not as difficult as you might think. In fact, you may well strike gold.