Life-Stage Segmentation Profiles

Portrait of the Middle-Income Family

Middle-Income Families (MIF) make up the largest of the life-stage groups at 18 percent of all adults. With a majority married, living in single family homes that they own, and having one or two children, this is a key target for advertisers and an important group for newspapers to reach.

Newspaper Readership & Newspaper Web site

The percentage of overall respondents who strongly agreed that they “need to get the news every day” declined from 1995 to 2005 by eight points, which aligns with the decrease in the number of Middle-Income Families: from 44 percent to 35 percent.

While Sunday readership among the MIF is falling, about half the people in this category are still Sunday newspaper readers. Nearly half of those readers cite advertising as the most important factor in deciding to buy the Sunday paper. Fewer people in this group buy the newspaper for news articles and features than in any other groups.

Subscribers just edge out single-copy purchasers.

The drop in daily newspaper readership fell by 15 percentage points. No longer do a majority of Middle-Income Families read the daily paper. This loss does not seem to be compensated by an increase to the newspaper Web site. Since only about half of the daily readers are subscribers, an effective single copy sales strategy, both for Sunday and daily, is very important in maintaining readership among this crucial group.

They turn to sports, local news, entertainment, main news, and the classifieds. Nearly half say they always read preprints. MIF check local sales, compare prices, check weather and check movie listings. 81 percent of this group -- the highest percent of all the segments -- clip coupons.

Three-quarters of them agree that “Given what I pay for it, the paper is a good value.” The Middle-Income Families and Middle-Income Young are the only groups that have a solid majority which agrees that reading the newspaper is “a good use of my time.” Even among non-readers, more than one out of four is likely to purchase a newspaper to check sales in local stores.

Middle-Income Families are somewhat likely to go to the newspaper Web site, though a majority does not. The reasons they cite as factors for visiting the site fall close to the average in news, weather, movies, sports, and shopping. They tend to be a little below the average in saying they come for jobs, homes, stocks and autos.

About half who visited the Web site did so in addition to reading the newspaper. Five percent cancelled home delivery subscription because of their newspaper Web site use.

Once on the site, they are about at the average in how many use news and lifestyle information. They are more likely than most to check the ads for jobs. Their use of ads for cars, real estate and general merchandise fall close to the average of all visitors.

While this group is staunchly an advertiser’s market in the print product, once at the newspaper’s Web site, they are only average in browsing the advertising and obtaining shopping information. The newspaper Web site is not as dominant as the print product in meeting the shopping needs of this group. Even among MIF who are already on the newspaper’s site, only about one-fifth of them use it for shopping information. It seems that meeting these needs on the site as successfully as in print would reap benefits to the newspaper.

Internet & Technology Adoption

Once online, they are neither leaders nor laggards. Internet adoption has grown significantly but their use of e-mail, maps, banking and most other activities is just about average. The same holds true for the news and information they seek online, with the moderate exceptions of slightly higher use of local/community news and weather.

For their online news needs, most turn first to Google, then Yahoo, then the local newspaper site. When they look for local entertainment information the newspaper Web site pulls a distant place.

Their adoption of entertainment technology (i.e. game systems, DVD players, digital cameras and video cameras) is higher than average, though slightly less than among Upper-Income Families. As consumers and purchases of technology equipment, it is likely they present an opportunity to newspapers for a strategic mix of editorial, advertorial and advertising.

Shopping

The Middle-Income Families shop more than the average respondent in the survey.
They consider themselves Saturday shoppers and overall they like to go shopping.

When asked how they used the Internet in the past 30 days, they were average in responding that they researched or purchased online, and average in researching online/buying offline. Their favorite shopping venues online are store Web sites (69 percent), Google (54 percent), Amazon (51 percent), eBay (55 percent), Yahoo (46 percent), and the newspaper Web site (13 percent).

Once more, as with entertainment needs, the newspaper Web site is losing ground to other online options to this group. The need to build, buy, or partner in an effort to keep them as newspaper customers seems to include development of a strong shopping component that includes store, product and pricing information.

Advertising

Newspaper was the dominant source for advertising in the past seven days for Middle-Income Families and the day they check ads most often is Sunday. Keeping in mind that the primary reason they buy the Sunday paper is advertising, the obvious conclusion is that keeping the advertising in the paper, and maintaining necessary circulation levels to do so, is crucial.

The Internet is also a source for advertising, though only about half as many MIF use the Internet as Upper-Income Families. Whether the use among UIF is indicative of a coming trend among the MIF is unclear, but certainly a strategy designed to reach shoppers via the newspaper Web site should be considered quickly.

To this group, newspaper is the most valuable in planning shopping, the media they spend most time reading for ads, and the highest in bringing attention to sales. They consider it the easiest to compare prices, the most trustworthy and it has the most up-to-date ads. Newspapers are also the preferred way to receive information, the most convenient to use and the one they look forward to most for advertising.

All this is a boon to newspapers as they sell the advertising, and also an important point to keep in mind as newspaper promotion is planned. Certainly a question that should be explored market-by-market is whether editorial articles and features can be incorporated that help Middle-Income Families as they make purchasing decisions.

As the MIF contemplate large purchases, far more turn to the Internet than to the newspaper. They depend on the Internet to buy from computer stores and cell phone stores. But they trust the newspaper for advertising when they are buying from all other stores including home electronics, appliances, home furnishing and department stores. How to build a cross-promotional strategy between the newspaper and the newspaper Web site, and how to incorporate information that will make the “newspaper” (online or in print) the first starting point for any shopping trip is a challenge that can, and should be, addressed in the near term.

The MIF are the biggest users of newspaper advertising inserts. They use them, they look for them, and they look through them. They use them to see what’s on sale, to comparison shop and because checking the inserts is part of their routine.

Among those who regularly use Sunday inserts, the Middle-Income Families regularly look for grocery stores, department stores, discount stores, home building centers, home electronics, drug stores and home furnishings. Keeping and featuring these advertisers is an important task. Extending the value to the newspaper Web site would be a strategy worth considering.

Recommendations

They are shoppers. They are a significant portion of America. And they trust newspapers. This makes them a key target to help build and maintain advertising revenue.

The recommendation offered in the study is to tailor Sunday content, marketing and single copy distribution strategies to build frequency among Middle-Income Families, who are the heaviest users of print advertising vehicles.

Newspapers should maximize their Sunday readership among this group and focus on providing robust and convenient shopping information with a particular eye toward building frequency.

Strategies should go beyond just single copy sales promotional strategies. This group provides several opportunities to maximize relationships with advertisers through co-promotions. For the MIF, advertising is important content, not just added value. Strategic consideration of advertising as content, both online and in print, is important to maintaining the existing relationship of trust with these people.

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About the Author

Ethnic/Income Segmentation | Life-Stage Segmentation

© December 2007 NAA

For more information, contact Randy Bennett, NAA vice president, audience and new business development, at randy.bennett@naa.org.