Understanding target communities through demographics can help organizations make informed decisions, effectively communicate, empower groups, and advocate. Demographic data from sources like the Census can tell the story of a place, test assumptions, and understand changes. It is important to convert raw data into meaningful knowledge about communities through techniques like storytelling, benchmarking, and analyzing time series trends to understand who comprises a community, how it compares to others, and how it is evolving. Case studies demonstrate how demographic analysis informed decisions for communities.

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Understanding your target community
or market with demographics

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Example
www.id.com.au/profile/goldcoast

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Outline
• Why demographics?
• Your demographic tool kit
• Where to get demographic information
• The principles of good demographic
analysis
• Case study
• Questions

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Why demographics?
• Facilitiating the development of happy
and sustainable communities
• What that means in practice will be
different for different types of places

5. communicate effectively
empower community groups
advocate for your community
generate funding
make evidence-based decisions
understand your community/market
informed
decisions
the
community
engage
decision
makers
persuade
your people
inform
Why demographics?
.idinformed decisions

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The most comprehensive source of
demographic data is the Census
Census data enables you to:
– tell the story of your place
– test your assumptions about your place
– articulate your community’s unique characteristics
– understand how your community is changing
Census data is complex and requires
considerable expertise to convert into
knowledge about your place

7. understand your working
population
economic profile4 economy.id
plan for the future
population forecast3 forecast.id
allocate your resources
social atlas2 atlas.id
understand your community
community profile1 profile.id
.idinformed decisions
Demographic toolkit

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Where to find demographic
information
• ABS website
• .id
• in-house analysts
• consultants

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Converting data into knowledge
• Story telling
– Who are we? How do we live? What do we do?
• Benchmarking
– How do we compare?
– How diverse are we?
• Time series
– How are we changing?
– Is this change desirable?

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People are predictable
Household life cycle

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Communities are groups of people
Suburb life cycle

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Examples
Bankstown City – Children’s services
www.id.com.au/profile/goldcoast

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Converting data into knowledge
• Story telling
– What is our residential role and function?
• Appropriate geography
– Who are our communities of interest?
• Benchmarking
– How do we compare to our region?
– How diverse are we?
• Time series
– How are we changing?
– Is this change desirable?

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Examples
• Maribrynong – diverse and changing
community
• Gold Coast – testing assumptions
• www.id.com.au