Demographics – statistics about a population – seem kind of boring to most people. Yet trends in the ethnic makeup of your market, its average age, its spending power, and its family structure provide you with good clues as to how your marketing ought to change.

By diversifying your marketing messages and imagery, you can appeal to a wider range of households, thereby increasing both the diversity and the growth rate of your customer base. For example, the United States has one of the highest rates of single-parent families of all developed countries: 34 percent. Also, the number of nontraditional two-parent households is on the rise (gay and lesbian parents are increasingly common, for example, as are multicultural and interracial couples and families). Many marketers continue to target white, heterosexual, two-parent households, ignoring the rapid increase in families that fail to fit this stereotyped view.

Income is one of the more important factors in consumer marketing, because it has a big impact on how much customers can spend. (Other factors, such as health and amount of debt, may also affect spending power to a lesser degree.) You can easily gather information on median household income by U.S. city or state and find out where income is lowest (Puerto Rico, Mississippi, and West Virginia) and highest (Maryland, New Jersey, and Connecticut). You can make a lot of educated guesses about what households in these states might like and need based just on knowing that they differ dramatically by income.

For example, a household in a relatively low-income state is more likely to find a big-box store’s deep discounts appealing, while a household in a high-income state may be more likely to shop from expensive specialty boutiques. If you want to locate a retail boutique, or promote a virtual boutique over the Internet, you may do well to start with a list of the highest-income states and cities in order to focus your marketing efforts where they will be most appreciated.