We know that more motorcycle owners these days are women, and now we know increasing percentages of all owners are married and college graduates, and they're generally older, according to the 2018 Motorcycle Industry Council Owner Survey.

"Demographics are changing for Americans across the country and it's no different for motorcycle owners," said MIC President and CEO Tim Buche. "For decades, the MIC Owner Survey has told us a lot about who we are, and we're now learning how things have shifted since our last study was done in 2014. Some of the stats are encouraging, like the increasing number of women owners, while other data, such as the rising median age, show where we have more work to do."

Gender, Age, Marital Status
Male Owners: 81%
Female Owners: 19%

Median Age
2018: 50
2014: 47
2012: 45

Married
2018: 68%
2014: 61%
2012: 63%

Education, Income and Work Status
College Graduate
2018: 24%
2014: 20%
2012: 17%

Median Household Income
2018: $62,500
2014: $62,200
2012: $64,100

Employed: 71%
Retired: 24%

The owner survey also uncovered trends among the emerging group of millennial motorcyclists. More than half have taken a training course and use their bikes frequently for commuting. Sixty-​nine percent say they are interested in electric motorcycles, citing fuel and the environment as top drivers.

With special interests like that, Motorcycle Shoppers are likely to turn to the internet to learn more about their potential future purchase. According to AudienceSCAN, within the last month, 49% of these shoppers have used a search engine to research a product they were considering for purchase. Nearly 91% of this audience prefers using Google for such a search, but only 22.9% will venture past the first page of search results.

"For the past several years, manufacturers have offered more great entry-​level motorcycles at affordable prices," Buche said, "while at the same time focusing on increasing the industry's outreach to millennials."

Dealers can advertise the latest models to these potential Motorcycle Shoppers digitally. Last year, according to AudienceSCAN, 66.2% of these shoppers took action after receiving an email ad and 65.1% were driven to action by either an ad they received via text or an ad they saw on the mobile smartphone apps. They're also 77% more likely than other adults to click on text link ads on websites and 78% find advertising on social networks useful to them. Also within the last year, these shoppers were driven to action by TV commercials (74.3%) and direct mail ads (67.9%).

AudienceSCAN data is available for your applications and dashboards through the SalesFuel API. Media companies and agencies can access AudienceSCAN data through the AudienceSCAN Reports in AdMall.