Let’s say you’ve been invited to a birthday party for someone you’ve never met before. Maybe you just started dating someone and the party is celebrating their friend or family member and they figured this would be an opportunity to introduce you to the family/friend group.
You would probably ask what you should bring as a gift. What if all your significant other told you was the person’s age, race, gender, and geographical location? Would you have any idea what to get them?
A much more helpful partner would give you a list of the celebrant’s hobbies and interests. That narrows it down a lot more, doesn’t it?
Not only can defining the psychographics of your ideal client help you narrow down who it is you’re talking to when you create content, it can make that content more effective. When you understand a person’s values, beliefs, and interests, you can create content that taps into those things, and that content will be much more effective. It’s the difference between your prospect saying, “They know who I am,” vs “They get me.”
We all want to be understood, but no one is going to be able to understand everyone else. So when you can prove to your prospects that you understand them, they’ll know you’re one of them. You’re part of their tribe. That will go so much further towards convincing them to work with you than anything else you could say or do. You can spend all day listing the things you know and all the cool things your product/team can do for them, but demonstrating that you “get” them is what will seal the deal.
That’s the difference between knowing your audience’s demographics vs their psychographics.
Actually getting that information is another matter entirely, so let’s get into it.
Table of Contents
- Demographics vs Psychographics
- Why Are Psychographics Important in Marketing?
- How to Find Psychographic Data
- How Can You Use Psychographics in Marketing?
- Conclusion
Demographics vs Psychographics
Demographics are the bare bones when it comes to defining your target audience: age, race, gender, income level, geographic area, job title, etc.
Psychographics are more personal. They’re the attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, interests, opinions, values, and fears of your target audience.
It can help to think of demographics and psychographics as a house or apartment. The demographics are the building itself: where it’s located, what it’s made out of, how big it is, etc.
The psychographics are everything inside the house, from the color of the paint on the walls to the furniture to the kitchen appliances. The building someone lives in might tell you a little bit about them, but it’s what they’re home looks like inside that gives you a feeling of who they are as a person.
Why Are Psychographics Important in Marketing?
We like to think we make decisions (especially purchasing decisions) based on rational data, but the truth is we make all our decisions (including our financial decisions) based on how we feel.
That’s why your marketing content needs to tap into your audience’s emotions if it’s going to be effective.
And knowing their demographics isn’t enough to understand what makes them tick.
For that, you need psychographics.
How to Find Psychographic Data
Knowing your ideal client’s psychographic data is great, but how do you get that information? There are several tactics you can use to find your audience’s psychographic data.
Social Media
My favorite is social media. If you already have some followers, take a look at their profiles and see what other profiles they’re following. If they’re following certain celebrities, authors, politicians, etc. all that gives you an idea of their psychographics. You can also look at what they’re posting about because that will give you the most information about what they’re reading, watching, and interested in.
If you don’t have a lot of followers on your company profile yet, this is a great opportunity to scope out the competition. Who are their followers? What are they posting about? What other accounts are they following?
You can also look up posts about your industry, see who has engaged with that post, and then do a little digging into their profiles and the other profiles they’re following to get an idea of their psychographics.
Social media is a goldmine of information. It does require you to spend some time and effort, but if you can use that data to create content that will do a better job of attracting and engaging your ideal clients, it will be time very well spent.
Just Ask
It’s amazing what you can get just by asking. You can create a short survey and ask all your customers to fill out.
Again, social media makes it very easy to create polls. So create a poll and see what people say.
You can also ask questions of your clients and prospects when you’re in meetings with them, on the phone, or at networking events.
Just remember not to make it too personal, or you’ll spook them.
If you’re creating surveys, not only should you avoid making the questions too personal, but you’ll also want to keep the survey as short as possible. The longer it is, the less likely people will be to fill it out. Provide an incentive, such as a discount on your products/services or the chance to win some swag or a gift card. Make sure it’s something people will want to win, not just a pen with your logo on it.
Even so, you’ll still probably have a hard time getting people to fill out the survey. But you’ll know the people who do fill it out are very engaged with your brand, which makes them the most ideal of your ideal clients.
Website Analytics
Your analytics can tell you so much about both the demographics and the psychographics of your website visitors. Google Analytics automatically gives you a breakdown of your website visitors’ demographics, but by taking a closer look, you can infer some of their psychographics.
How did they find you? Did they click on a link from a social media platform or a partner website? If so, which ones?
Did they find you by conducting a search? If so, what search terms did they use? Not only will this help you refine your SEO strategy, but knowing the specific search terms people are using to look for you will help you better understand your target audience.
Then you’ll want to look at which pages they’re looking at and spending the most time on while they’re on your website. This will tell you what content is most successful — i.e., what’s really resonating with your audience? When you know what they want and what they don’t want, you can spend more time and effort focusing on creating the content they want so they’ll be more likely to spend more time engaging with it and take the next step in the buyer journey.
How Can You Use Psychographics in Marketing?
Great! Now you know all about your target audience. Now what?
Now you get to implement all that juicy data in your marketing strategy. If you’re wondering what, exactly, that looks like, here are some tips.
Target Their Pain Points
The first step to creating content that will resonate with your target audience is to target their pain points. In order to do that, you need to know what their pain points are. What keeps them up at night? What’s that nagging worry that’s always lurking in the back of their mind?
If you know their psychographics, you know what they care about. This also means you know their goals. In marketing it’s at least as important to show the end result as it is to demonstrate the pain. You need to be able to show your audience what they can expect after buying your product/service. Paint a picture of their dream result, because that’s what will ultimately convince them to buy.
Tell a Story About Them
I’ve written a whole blog post and given countless presentations on the importance of storytelling in marketing, but just telling a story is not enough. You need to tell a story that centers your ideal client.
This means you need to know the kinds of situations in which your ideal client tends to find themselves (especially as it relates to your product/service) and you know how they’re most likely to react in these situations.
You also know the situations in which your ideal clients would like to find themselves (especially as it relates to your product/service). That’s the dream scenario, the happily ever after you have to dangle in front of them to motivate them to take the next step in the buyer journey. The next step towards achieving that happily ever after.
Use Their Language
Language is everything. If you talk over your audience’s head, they’ll get confused and click away.
If you talk down to them, they’ll get disgusted and click away.
You need to make your content accessible and interesting to your ideal client. That means using, not only language they understand, but language they use when describing their product, their ideal solution, and your product/service.
This is going to require some more research. Take note of the words people use when talking about your product/service when you’re talking to them, especially in sales conversations and follow-up conversations. What words keep popping up over and over again in these conversations? On their social media posts?
You can also get this information from surveys, but it’s harder. It requires a write-in section of the survey, which will significantly decrease the number of people who will fill it out. If the survey consists only of a few boxes for them to check, it will require considerably less effort, and therefore increases the likelihood they’ll fill out the whole survey and turn it in.
Incorporate Their Favorite Pop Culture References
I’ll never forget the blog post I saw a few years ago on another content marketer’s website. It featured Yoda in celebration of Star Wars Day.
It was cute and clever, and certainly grabbed my attention (I’ve been a Star Wars fan my whole life). But I wouldn’t recommend writing such a post if you know most of your target audience is comprised of Trekkies.
When you understand the psychographics of your target audience, you can create content that not only grabs and holds their attention, but convinces them you are one of them. You are part of their tribe, and everyone wants to do business within their own tribe.
Distribute Your Content on Their Channels
Their demographics can give you a clue as to which online spaces they most likely frequent, but psychographics can give you a much clearer picture of where they’re hanging out online, as well as when.
Every social media platform has its general recommendations of when the entire audience of that platform is most active, but your target audience might not be a part of the big crowd. They might be night owls who are scrolling social media when everyone else is asleep. They might be sleeping while other people are having lunch or checking their email.
When you know how your target audience behaves, you’ll know, not only what content to put in front of them, but how, where, and when to put it in front of them so they’ll be most likely to see and engage with it.
Conclusion
People work with those they know, like, and trust. It’s easy to get people to know you. You just have to create content that answers their questions and position yourself as a thought leader in your industry. That last part can also go a long way towards gaining their trust, but you won’t get them to like you unless you convince them you’re one of them. That requires a thorough understanding of their psychographics. Once you have that and incorporate it into your marketing strategy, not only will they like you, but they’ll also trust you more than your competitor who is busy pushing out information without any understanding of psychographics.
If your content isn’t driving results for your business, it could be because it doesn’t incorporate your target audience’s psychographics to motivate them to take the next step in the buyer journey. We love helping people with that, so if that’s you, let’s chat.
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The post What Are Psychographics and How Can You Use Them to Make Your Content More Relevant? first appeared on AV Writing Services.