“Psychographics speaks more to an attitude, a lifestyle.”
It’s easy to use and depend completely upon demographics when making your buyer personas. Why? Because demographics are easy to see and find. They include things like age, income, gender, marital status, etc. When creating buyer personas, demographic segmentation is a great place to start because it cuts large chunks of unneeded information away from the haystack you’re searching through. But, helpful as demographics are, they are far inferior to psychographics when discovering what makes your buyer personas tick.
Psychographics are market research or statistics classifying population groups according to psychological variables (such as attitudes, values, or fears), according to Merriam-Webster.
“For example, demographic information might tell you something about a person’s age, but psychographic information will tell you that the person is just starting a family and is in the market for baby products.” (Meredith)
This is important because people don’t buy things because they’re a certain age or gender—they buy because of their attitudes toward that product and the value that product adds to their beliefs.
So, start with demographics first, then focus on psychographics, building upon the former and expanding.
Let’s say you want to open a store dedicated to king-size luxury bathtubs. You are wise, and you begin investigating your potential customers, starting with demographics. You investigate what percentage of those near your potential store location are married, live in houses (where a huge bathtub can fit), earn more than $50,000 a year, have children, etc. Once that’s done, you’ll turn to psychographics. You examine how many people have time to enjoy a luxury bath, how many have stressful jobs, how many are willing to pay for the fancy bath bombs and scrub brushes that you sell, and how many are athletic and need the muscle repair salts that you provide, etc.
Do you see how much better prepared you would be after researching your buyer persona’s demographics and psychographics?
Take a moment to consider your own business or job. How does it depend on demographics and psychographics? Are psychographics being examined and used to their fullest potential? I’d bet money that your business isn’t using psychographics as tactically as it could be.
Don’t worry. You can fix that by finding the psychographic information you’re missing for your buyer personas.
How do you find the psychographic information you need?
1. Interview existing clients.
2. Investigate website analytics.
3. Use focus groups.
4. Collect data from market research companies.
To help you get started, here is a website with several psychographic questions for you to use; just scroll down 40% through the article to get to the questions. https://getsitecontrol.com/blog/psychographic-survey-questions/
Understanding your target market’s demographics and their psychographics will enable you to advertise, market, and sell to them more effectively. You’ll understand not only who they are, where they’re located, and what media they use, but also what motivates them, what scares them, how they respond to marketing messages, and what thrills them to buy. Together, demographics and psychographics can give your business a critical winning edge.
Guess what? There’s another incredible benefit you get from leaning on psychographic information for your marketing: the people who use your product socialize and move amongst others in their psychographic circle—the same psychographic circle you’ve spent so much work to market directly to! The odds of them sharing your product and spreading the word dramatically increase.
Two birds with one stone.
So, get out a notebook and a pen, take some notes, and get started on your psychographic research today!
Sources
Editors, AllBusiness. “What Demographics and Psychographics Mean for Small Business Marketing.” All Business, Dun & Bradstreet, 29 May 2021, https://www.allbusiness.com/what-demographics-and-psychographics-mean-for-small-business-marketing-426-1.html.
Meredith, Alisa. “How to Use Psychographics in Your Marketing: A Beginner's Guide.” HubSpot Blog, HubSpot, 20 Dec. 2021, https://blog.hubspot.com/insiders/marketing-psychographics.
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