If the term "psychographics" brings to mind images of lava lamps and tie-dye shirts, think again.
Psychographic marketing isn't a throwback to 1970s business promotion techniques, but rather a marketing approach that focuses on human attitudes and interests. Here's some insight into psychographics, and tips for putting them to work for you.
What are Psychographics?
When marketers dig into the psychographics of their target customers, they're learning about behaviors, values, interests, opinions, attitudes and activities. This approach often augments traditional demographics-based audience personas.
Harvard Business Review explained that when a marketing strategist combines age, location, income level, gender, ethnicity, education and occupation with psychographics, the result is greater insight into the reasoning of their audience and the way they make decisions.
Collecting Psychographic Marketing Data
Gathering psychographic information about your target customers isn't as difficult as it may seem. The use of surveys, individual interviews, focus groups and website traffic analysis can help shed more light on who you're targeting, according to HubSpot.
With these tools, you can go beyond the surface of objective data and learn:
- Personal concerns and pain points that need resolution
- Lifestyle preferences related to food, fitness and hobbies
- What makes the person feel fulfilled and happy
- Core values related to education, religion and finances
- Why they have logged online and what sites they visit frequently
- How and when they browse (mobile versus desktop)
By reaching out directly to key customers and supporters of your brand, you can learn the finer details of the customer journey. All you have to do is ask.
Putting Psychographics to Work
The HBR report also noted that marketers use psychographic data to enable smarter keyword targeting, create hashtags based on ideas that influence buying decisions and identify like-minded communities online where a marketing message is persuasive and accepted.
This psychological information instantly creates a more robust, pinpointed marketing strategy that can allow you to influence the emotions (and acknowledge the values) that drive your target audience to make decisions. If your business is ready to dig deeper into your target audience's psychological background, contact a marketing professional today to learn more.
