If you’ve every created a survey, chances are you’ve included at least one or two demographic survey questions. But is it a good idea to include them? Is prying into someone’s personal details worthwhile, or is it likely to scare off participants? Take a deeper dive with us into understanding demographic survey questions.
What are demographic survey questions?
They’re the “open sesame” opportunity for savvy stakeholders to segment their markets demographically. It involves probes into respondents’ backgrounds outside of behavioral and psychographic characteristics, such as (for example) age, gender, race, religion, ethnicity, income, employment status, level of education, marital status, and geographic location. The more you can profile your customer, the easier it is to uniquely personalize your clients’ brand experience and identify insightful marketplace trends.
The value of demographic questions in a survey
This question category creates several channels for researchers and businesses to appreciate and analyze their target customers, including:
- Trend identification: For example:
- Discovering that significant numbers of professionals (an occupational demographic) living in New York City moved to Boca Raton, Florida (both geographic demographics).
- They did it to take advantage of remote working advantages (a workplace demographic) in a warm climate (a weather demographic) after COVID-19.
- Buyer persona profiling: For example:
- Surveys may highlight that millions of female college graduates (an educational demographic) between the ages of twenty and thirty (an age demographic) love Taylor Swift (an influencer demographic).
- They follow her opinion on buying music of course, but also cosmetics, music, voting, dress code, and other aspirational constructs.
- Data analytics benefits include ensuring survey results aren’t over- or under-weighting demographic indicators in the detected trends.
- Developing on-point content that resonates with the audience. For example:
- Broadcasting in Spanish (a language demographic) to Hispanic audiences (an ethnic demographic) who regard it as their first language.
- Similarly, French, Italian, or French messaging to immigrants with the same mindset improves responses.
- Defining market segments to test if there’s enough buying power within them to deserve laser-focus marketing. For example:
- In the B2B arena, are the few distribution companies (a business-type demographic) purchasing rubber sealers for auto repairs (a customer demographic) in Michigan (a geographic demographic) worth costly promotions and an area-dedicated sales team?
- In the workforce: For example:
- How are the different work groups divided by work experience, ethnicity, management status, single or married, age, and team projects reacting to remote working opportunities?
- All items above in bold and italics represent prominent demographic constructs.
With this understanding of the demographic survey question’s importance, objectives, and possibilities, the conversation moves on to a review of the most popular demographic probes
Common types of demographic questions to ask in a survey
The best way to explain this is to cover several verticals with demographic survey questions examples (see below).
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Gender
Gender-type questions usually emerge as multiple-choice answers, with survey designers working to provide appropriate and inclusive options, as well as the chance to opt out.
Example: “How do you identify?”
- Female
- Male
- Transgender
- Nonbinary
- Other (please specify)
- I prefer not to say.
Researchers may follow these up with an open-ended question, such as “Would you like to add anything to your gender selection?”
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Age
Age questioning is an excellent way to check for truthfulness and emotional proclivities. Here are a few tips on making the most of age-related questions:
- First, ask for a date of birth. People almost always divulge this information spontaneously and honestly with no reservations — which isn’t always the case when answering, “What’s your age?”
- Secondly, ask that one further down the survey after respondents have likely forgotten their DOB responses.
- Then, compare the DOB to the stated age. If the latter corresponds to a younger-than-stated DOB, you’ll know that age self-consciousness or “needing to appear younger” is a notable customer motivator.
- These separated but double-edged questions in the survey frequently highlight telling disconnects, creating invaluable insights.
- In the case of DOB/age mismatches, it occurs frequently in over-fifty age groups, mainly among females.
- For the same “age shy” reason, respondents find it more comfortable providing range feedback versus divulging actual years since birth.
Example: Depending on your target audience, questions asking “How old are you?” with the following options work effectively:
- Under 20
- 20 – 30 years old
- 31 – 40 years old
- 41 – 50 years old
- 51 – 65 years old
- 66 or over
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Ethnicity and Nationality
The US is a nation of immigrants, many of whom have robust cultural ties to their countries of origin. This construct overlaps other verticals, such as preferred language, location choice, religion, nationality, and more.
Ethnicity is complicated, with many respondents adhering to more than one (e.g., a respondent with an Israeli father and a South African mother). So leave them with the option to tick off as many as they want, and don’t make it compulsory to respond to this question at all. Why? Many regard it as extraordinarily private.
Example: “What is your ethnic background?”
- White/Caucasian
- Asian
- Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander
- Hispanic/Latino
- African-American
- Native American
- European (state where)
- South American (state which country)
- Other (please specify)
- Unknown
- I prefer not to say
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Education and Income
Customers’ highest education level provides fertile segmentation material, especially when combined with income (the two going hand in hand). It helps marketers create readability in their promotions (not going above the audiences’ heads), with an understanding of vital price elasticity drivers and the audience’s tech capabilities (to mention a couple of many integrated demographic items). So, examples of each are as follows:
- Education: “Which of the following apply to you?”
- High school (including GED)
- Attended college but never earned a degree
- Undergraduate degree (state which)
- Post-graduate degree (state which)
- Doctorate (state which)
- Certificates earned other than the above.
- I prefer not to say
- Income: “What is your annual household income?”
- Under $29,999
- $30,000-$60,000
- $60,001-$90,000
- $90,001-$120,000
- $120,001+
- I prefer not to say
- Education: “Which of the following apply to you?”
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Employment and Occupation
This demographic question ties in closely with income/education (see above) and location, providing insights into crucial lifestyle patterns. In the digital era, it involves a multi-choice far more extensive than traditional questions before 2018 under this heading.
Example: “What are your employment/occupation details? Please respond to as many of the options below as apply to you, leaving out those that don’t:
- What’s your occupation based on your experience and training?
- If applicable, what’s your designated title on the team?
- Is there a difference between (1) and (2)? YES NO
- If YES, please explain why and what the difference is.
- I’m employed:
- Full-time
- Part-time
- I’m a professional freelancer
- I work:
- In the company’s offices all the time.
- Remotely full-time
- In a hybrid working system:
- ……… Days a week in the office
- I don’t work (mark off why below)
- Retired
- Unemployed.
- Unable to work (please specify the reason)
- Other (please specify)
- I prefer not to say
The demographic survey questions above represent the tip of a massive iceberg that includes Political Preferences, Family and Dependents, Language, Religion, and more.
Tips for writing clear and relevant demographic survey questions
Ready for a not-at-all-shocking tip? Let common sense be your guide. Here are tips that create the most traction when designing demographic-centric questionnaires. These guidelines emerge from expert protocols from companies like Sogolytics, which have decades of experience in this arena. Here are the survey demographic questions tips I believe you should follow rigidly:
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- Define your survey’s strategic objectives and test your processes against these as you go along.
- Create multi-choice options to make it easy for respondents to identify which option applies to them most compellingly.
- Regarding highly sensitive probes (like religion or age), making answers compulsory or disqualifying respondents who fail to answer from the survey are design errors. If that’s your model, I predict disappointing response metrics.
- Clarify the survey’s goal and the level of privacy you guarantee. Clarify if all the responses are unanimous data (despite you knowing the respondents’ IDS).
- If you promise things, like in (4) above, deliver accordingly. Undertaking lapses can lead to legal consequences at worst and dissolve respondent trust in your value proposition at best.
- Make your demographic survey questions understandable and as simple as possible in language you’re sure your audience will understand (as demonstrated in my examples above)
- Translate your survey into as many languages as are relevant for its completion and give respondents options if they’re multi- or even bi-lingual.
- Survey your audience the way they prefer, not necessarily how your company prefers.
- For example: Millennials love mobile connections to SM platforms when participating in surveys.
- Others may opt for web landing pages, responding to texts, etc.
- Follow a step-by-step questioning path without throwing in complicated configurations. Respondents like bite-sized content pieces.
- When data analytics indicate survey bias, eradicate it immediately.
- Avoid lengthy cumbersome surveys, opting for “short, sweet, and to the point.”
Analyzing demographic data from surveys
A vast difference exists between a demographic questionnaire and a survey. Why? Once the questions have been asked and the data accumulated, stakeholders curate it through a data analytics program to derive trends and insights. In modern marketing environments, data is a company’s most valuable asset, provided it represents:
- Your target segment and a sample size that statistically aligns with this goal.
- Significant buying power.
- Absence of errors, biases, and distortions that skew results.
- Enough demographic verticals to create vivid pictures of customer interactions in the marketplace.
Data analysis is at the heart of demographic market segmentation, enabling you to fashion your marketing programs to sell convincingly across defined divisions with personalized promotions that customers can quickly and steadfastly identify with.
AI-enhanced software can dive into massive data fields, throwing out irrelevant information while converging on the aspects crucial to creating a competitive edge for your brand. It’s so revolutionary; these algorithms can do it in a fraction of human time. Consequently, data volumes vegetating in files, lying dormant for years (like diamonds too deep for mining technology to reach), are suddenly on the surface and in the daylight. With it comes new demographic opportunities beyond marketers’ imagination.
One only has to look at the flood of disruptive fintech startups hitting home runs in gigantic markets previously monopolized by big banks, credit card companies, and the like.
For example, micro-lenders focus on B2C and B2B profile customer demographics, such as young adults, small retailers, credit-compromised families (the latter provided access to Buy Now Pay Later programs), and more. Market segmentation lies at the root of all these innovative ventures.
How Sogolytics can help you craft effective demographic survey questions
Sogolytics is front and center of the demographic segmentation conversation. They have dealt with every conceivable B2C and B2B research initiative launched by an expensive client base in the US. They have AI-powered software to help you analyze your data and the resources to get your segmentation surveys kicking off on the right foot. We know the questions to ask, how to formulate them, avoid biases, staying short and focused.
So, request a demo for an optimal demographic survey question representation that will get the job done right for you the first time.
