Research is key when you are developing a marketing strategy. You have to know your target audience before you can design materials like brochures and door hangers that will appeal to them. While most people are probably familiar with the idea of catering to a specific demographic, there is a new way market researchers are starting to group people, and they call it psychographics.
Demographics Explained
Demographics have to do with tangible differences between people. Demographics are categorized by information like age, gender, weight, and income level. It’s pretty easy to separate people into these kinds of groups because the distinguishing characteristics are observable.
Psychographics Explained
Psychographics are groupings of people according to intangible items like beliefs, values, and preferences. These are a little more difficult to measure than demographics, since it’s hard to know who believes what.
Using Demographics
Demographics are very important when planning your marketing campaign. Unless you have unlimited funds, you will need to target your marketing to a specific group. Which group you need to focus on should be relatively simple to figure out. If you run a beauty salon near a college, you know that you need to focus mainly on women between the ages of 18 and 22. Then you can just ask people in this group what kinds of things they want. Then you advertise that you offer these items.
Using Psychographics
Using psychographics is a bit trickier for some kinds of marketing campaigns. If you are using door hangers, for example, it may be difficult to know whose door to hang them on because people don’t generally congregate based on values. You probably don’t want to make your beliefs the focus of your marketing, just include them as a side line.
The Benefits of Using Demographics
The biggest benefit of focusing on a specific demographic is that you save money because you aren’t trying to design a bunch of materials like door hangers and posters for everyone.
The Benefits of Using Psychographics
People like to do business with those who have similar values. If you have an environmentally friendly business, let people know, and you will probably attract some like-minded customers. When you take psychographics into account in your marketing, you make a personal connection with people, which makes them more likely to do business with you.
Using Psychographics and Demographics Together
Probably the best marketing strategy utilizes both pshychographic and demographic research. Go ahead and target a certain age or income group, and within that you can also appeal to certain values or beliefs. This way, you have the ability to initially draw in new customers, and then turn them into loyal buyers for life by appealing to core beliefs and values.
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