541 Benigno Boulevard Bellmawr, NJ 08031
1 800 HOW EASI (469-3274)
www.easidemographics.com
EASI (Easy Analytic Software, Inc,) just released a new product, EASI Life Stage Clusters. According to company president Bob Katz, the product was developed in response to customers’ requests for a demographic segmentation system with cluster definitions that were more understandable than those which were currently available. More importantly, the methodology had to be easy to explain to the end users of the cluster information. At the same time, it had to be equally robust. The concept of “life stage” as opposed to “life style” provides a different look at who is living in a neighborhood.
Age, income and marital status are the three primary elements comprising cluster basics. Clusters can be used by marketers, real estate people and others who need to understand buying habits and sales potential, for example.
The EASI clusters are based on seven age groups, four marital status groups and three income groups. Graphically, the clusters look like this.
The categories multiply into 84 possible clusters (7 * 4 * 3 = 84). (Not all clusters were found to be populated.)
Top 10 Life Stage Clusters
Of the 84 possible combinations (7 * 4 * 3), these seven clusters did not get populated (no surprise when you read the description).
Summary
In general, clusters can provide good data to use for customer targeting and identifying additional potential for products or services. While I have always enjoyed the cutesy names of clustering systems - BMW Aficionados, Nerdly and Geekly, or Just Po Folks - people outside of the Location Intelligence discipline may find these terms not readily identifiable or relatable. To me, the main advantage of the EASI Life Stage Clusters is that they are easy to explain and use because their derivation is pretty straight forward.