Advertising Age published an article today titled Why You Can No Longer Sell to the Average American Household. The answer offered in the article, which is supported by Census Bureau data, is simple: “The average American household no longer exists.”
This raises a big challenge for financial services marketers. In an industry where marketers often target “the average American household”, how should marketers respond?
The census data, which reveals a more fragmented population dispersed across several market segments (as opposed to a majority of the population falling into the “average American household” category) should prompt marketers to take a more detailed look at their own specific markets.
We often talk about how financial institutions cannot be “everything to everyone.” In many cases, we’re talking about institutions that target the obvious majority: the average American household. In the absence of this majority, marketers at these institutions will need to make new strategic choices. They need to adopt a more targeted approach based on market-specific data. Perhaps the trends revealed by the census data will prompt marketers to look critically at their own specific markets, identify opportunities among specific market segments, and take steps to align their efforts with attractive opportunities. After all, as the group we once knew as “the average American household” becomes smaller, so does the opportunity associated with targeting that segment of the market.
