Do Market Research at the Census Bureau
June 2, 2009 by Jean Murray
Filed under Business
Are you starting a small business? Or are you considering expanding your business into a new area? Before you consider that new business venture, you need to find out about your potential customers, whether they are businesses or individual consumers. If you don’t know who you are selling 
to, and how many people are in the area where you want to sell, you may find yourself with not enough customers or the wrong kinds.
One great source of information about populations in various areas is the U.S. Census Bureau. Here are just a few of the services they provide:
The American Fact Finder section gives you lots of possibilities. One quick way to get information about a local market is to use their Community Fact Sheet. You just put in a zip code and you can find out:
- The total population by age or race
- Average household and family size
- Total number of households
- Education level of residents
- Disabled or veterans
- How many people are in the labor force
- What kinds of housing people live in
If you want more information, you can use the American Community Survey, which is an ongoing survey of the U.S. at various levels. I looked at the congressional district and found:
- Details on number of households, including numbers of children under 18 in each household
- Households over age 65
- School enrollment by level, from nursery to college
- Educational level of residents (in more detail than the American Fact Finder
- Languages spoken in homes
- Ancestry of residents
This information could be extremely valuable to you. For example, if you want to market to families with school-age children, you can find out the size of your potential market. Once you know what your target market looks like, you can determine how many of these people live in each zip code in your area. This can help if you are considering sending out direct mail pieces to these people.
This is just a small sample of the information available on the Census Bureau website. And it’s all available at no cost to you.
Image: sxc.hu
