Demographics have been a staple in consumer research but over the last few years, the popularity of psychographics has increased.
While demographics provide useful data, they don’t tell you what actually makes them buy or why they bought something from you. And this is why when segmenting audiences, enterprise-level companies often lean toward psychographics.
So, What Are Psychographics?
Psychographics, as the first part of the word implies, revolves around the psychology of your customers and clients.
It’s more than just what service consumers would buy, but why they would buy it.
Psychographics collect and analyze the intangible aspects of an audience to get a qualitative look at their data.
Psychographic segmentation includes:
- Interests and Activities
- Habits
- Attitudes
- Emotions
- Preferences
- Values
- Motivations
- Desires
- Lifestyle
- Personality Characteristics
- Principles and Beliefs
This is important because these factors allow you to create a more robust customer profile than demographics do.
How Do Demographics Compare to Psychographics?
Think of demographics as an outline. They’re a quantitative approach to who your buyer is.
Demographics look at:
- Gender
- Age
- Income
- Marital Status
- Occupation
- Ethnicity
- Geolocation
- Education Level
- Religion
Essentially, demographics give you a closer look at your audience’s challenges but not where to find them, or what drives them to action.
When demographics and psychographics are used together, they form a full buyer persona. The more psychographic information you have, the more detailed your customer profiles become and the easier it is to get leverage in influencing your conversions.
For example, an eCommerce company can have a demographic that may be: single, 18-34, and with an annual income of less than $40,000. And their psychographics may be: cares about the environment, is willing to spend more on products that minimize environmental impact, and their favorite social network is Pinterest.
Individually, demographics and psychographics are useful. But together, they put together a comprehensive overview of your consumers.
How to Obtain Psychographic Information on Your Clients
There are a couple of ways to collect insightful data on your clients, and it depends on whether you’d like to collect data directly, or indirectly.
A great method for collecting your psychographic information directly is to interview your current clients. This direct method is effective because you can discover information straight from your client’s mouth—and you can compare insights from your best client (who you want more from) and other clients to see if there are any differences in their background.
If you don’t have that kind of relationship with your clients, or would rather collect your psychographic information indirectly, another option is to analyze your existing website analytics. What have people clicked on, called for, and bought in the past? Analytics on your existing site content, or even discount codes and special offers, can also be insightful at seeing what has successfully converted your clients and customers.
One of the issues with learning psychographics is making assumptions based on demographics, and the above methods, and below tools, are a great way to skip past assumptions.
What if you don’t already have clients or analytics to look into? For businesses that are still in the research phase, or for businesses that want to target other consumers, there are two psychographic tools:
- Surveys or questionnaires (from sites like SurveyMonkey)
- Focus groups
How to Apply Psychographics
What happens after you collect psychographic information on your ideal clients?
Psychographics can be applied to tailor your marketing material and content to your ideal client: targeted newsletters, emails, social media posts, keywords, and more. If you need more help applying your psychographics to your website’s content, design, and development, then let us know—oh, and we do social too.
We can help you master your digital marketing strategy with CRO tips. Our team of strategists are experts at understanding you and your audience. Whether it’s setting up Google Analytics, or creating great landing pages, Wayward Kind is all about action. Ready to convert to a mindful marketing strategy? Contact us today!
