“Birds of a feather flock together.” This is the principle on which micromarketing is based. In other words, people with similar levels of education, value systems and behavior patterns tend to cluster together. GfK GeoMarketing’s highly detailed street-level market data allow companies to achieve more targeted marketing campaigns, product positioning and new customer acquisition strategies.

What’s the use of determining your target group profile if you can’t actually locate its members? Today’s companies are under a lot of pressure to reach as many potential customers as possible while keeping costs down. A key factor in achieving this goal – particularly in the case of companies who sell directly to end consumers – is the ability to carry out highly targeted marketing and advertising campaigns. In short, “precision” is the watchword when it comes to reaching existing and potential customers.

With GfK GeoMarketing’s microgeographic market data, companies can hone in on their target groups by searching small-area regions for the relevant profile (e.g. family type, accommodation type, lifestyle, consumer behavior, etc.). Simply put, this data makes it possible to pinpoint locations whose inhabitants fit the profile of your ideal customer.

Street-level market data for precision planning

Micromarketing takes advantage of the fact that people who live close together tend to have similar consumer behaviors. The goal of micromarketing is to use a combination of comprehensive data sources from different regional levels – from street segments and postcodes to municipalities, greater metropolitan areas and counties – to generate accurate and comparable data down to the smallest geographic level possible. This allows for more precise target group location, resulting in better response rates and the optimal use of available resources. Micromarketing fully respects individual privacy: Microgeographic data always refer to street segments (containing at least five households) rather than to the individuals living in these areas.

In a micromarketing approach, microgeographic market data on potential and/or information about the competition are calculated and associated with the appropriate digital maps, down to the smallest geographic level possible. To facilitate this, GfK GeoMarketing provides both the latest market data and high-quality digital maps. Clients can then import their own customer data in order to place it into relationship with this information. It is therefore possible to create a profile of each target group and assess each street segment according to factors such as purchasing power, accommodation and family type. All of this is visualized with the help of a special geomarketing software application. GfK GeoMarketing recommends the use of RegioGraph, a geomarketing software solution custom-tailored for working with immense amounts of data on detailed (micro)geographic levels. With just a few clicks of the mouse, you can access all of the data via an intuitive visual interface, complete with various analytic tools and report-generating functions. By bringing together such a wide variety of data sources – market data, information on the competition and a company’s own data – businesses can quickly arrive at valuable insights regarding their target groups and markets. Of course, the program’s analytic and search features are not limited to the level of street segments. You can easily view data at the level of municipalities and postcodes, or even for user-defined areas such as sales regions or catchment areas.

Applied micromarketing

Micromarketing is useful to any company that wants to evaluate the unique socio-demographic and neighborhood characteristics of consumers’ living environment. In short, any business that sells directly to end consumers – from mail-order companies to financial service providers – can benefit tremendously from this approach.

Questions easily tackled with a micromarketing approach include:

• How large is my catchment area? 
• How many people live in the immediate proximity of a business location and what is their purchasing power?
• What is the socio-demographic profile of the residents of a given area or neighborhood? 
• Which competitors are located nearby and what is their local influence? 
• What is the profile of a given location (urban, rural, etc.) and what is its drawing power?

Micromarketing also offers the ideal basis for planning more targeted marketing campaigns. Other key areas of application in marketing, sales and expansion divisions include calculating potential for various products and services as well as performing scoring analyses for the purpose of optimizing customer support and/or new customer acquisition. It’s also widely used for analyzing catchment areas, planning locations and optimizing branch networks.

We pride ourselves on adapting our products and services to our clients’ precise needs so that we can deliver the perfect solution.

Micromarketing – Do it yourself or take advantage of our expert knowledge

Thanks to our many years of experience and wide range of products and services, GfK GeoMarketing offers everything you need for professional micromarketing, including our microgeographic databank GfK POINTplus and RegioGraph, a powerful, customizable geomarketing software solution that is specifically designed for working with analyses on the level of street segments. We also offer numerous market data sets on the level of Germany’s 2.5 million street segments.

Some of the market data sets we offer include:

• GfK Demographics – Indicates region-specific profiles of the population according to age, income level, family type and accommodation type
• GfK Purchasing Power – Reveals the disposable income of the population according to region
• GfK Retail Purchasing Power – Shows the region-specific potential for fixed-location and mail-order retail
• GfK Purchasing Power for Retail Product Lines – Provides purchasing power data for 61 different retail product lines
• GfK Financial Services Potential – Reveals the potential for financial services among German households, organized by region
• GfK Euro Socio Styles (Roper Consumer Styles) – Provides consumer behavior profiles for key target groups

Naturally, we’re happy to calculate specific market data and indices based on your individual needs and wishes. Our market data experts would be happy to advise you!

Any questions? Contact Doris Steffen at +49 (0)7251 9295180 or d.steffen(at)gfk-geomarketing.com

Illustration -- RegioGraph report:

The depicted street segment encompasses 158 households, around 20% of which belong to immigrants, a figure well above the national average.

The area in question consists primarily of large apartment blocks with mostly mid-level income households (a little more than 70% of the households have monthly net earnings between 1,500 - 2,600 euros). There are a variety of family types, with an above-average number of singles (index 137). More than half of the household heads are under 40 years old. On average, households in this area have 2,114 euros per year available for food and luxury-item expenditures; residents in this location spend an above-average amount on clothing, with more modest expenditures on furniture.