Psychographic data is an excellent tool in the hands of an experienced marketer that can help marketers create segments, personas, and content that can explain the “Why” s instead of the “Who” s.
But what does that even mean?
There are as many ways to browse and check out products as there are prospects, and, in the end, demographic data or browsing habits, if used on their own, aren’t the solid base on which a brand or a marketer can base their digital marketing campaign anymore.
Not using psychographic data, you run the risk of creating a campaign that will have little tweaks here and there instead of offering a personalized, tailor-made, and curated experience.
Demographics vs. Psychographics
The first question to be asked would be how demographics differ from psychographics. And the answer would be the following:
While both require marketers to gather data, analyze patterns, and create segments that correspond with these patterns, the two data categories are there to answer different questions – and by extension, create different profiles.
- Demographics answer the “Who” question: Who are your customers? How old are they? Where do they live? Are they married, do they have children, do they push through 10-hour workdays?
- Psychographics will tell you “Why”: Why would a customer buy from you? What do they think is interesting about your brand? What is the core need your product can cover? Does your brand care about the same causes as your customer?
These profiles will be much more in sync with your actual prospects, as they’ll speak to their emotions and thoughts. Psychographic data are data derived from the psychology, values, ideas, and fears of your prospects.
In short, where demographics can explain who will be viewing your ads, social media posts, and purchasing your product, psychographics can delve into why a person will do all of the above.
There are several ways to gather psychographic data, whether by analyzing numbers or simply creating quizzes or polls on social media platforms. Through psychographics, you can create customer segments that will drive more engagement.
Since psychographic data speak directly to the heart of your prospects, they can help you create content that elicits an emotional response. Your social media profiles, email marketing campaigns, website, blog, and so on resonate with your audience on a deeper level, leading to an enhanced online presence and establishing your brand as an authority.
The Psychographic Data You Absolutely Need
Since your goal is to create personas that will deliver a personal, tailor-made message, you need to use specific types of psychographic data.
These types need to include the IAO variables: interests, activities, opinions.
The Interests
Does your product or service have to do with luxury goods? You won’t target people that are not into luxury goods or, at least, lifestyle. Using your audience’s interests makes you more relatable. Your prospects see a brand that understands them and is fascinated by the same things they’re fascinated by.
The Activities
Brands deal with projects relevant to their niche, Instagram influencers deal with everything from day-to-day activities to sponsored posts, and your audience deals with everything. This is why studying their activities is very important.
What your audience does every day is what they can relate to with ease. Do they like books? Incorporate that in your content. Do they use slang a lot? Use that to your benefit. Is how to make money blogging one of their most searched terms on Google? Go ahead and create content that will cover this.
The Opinions
This is where you need to thrive. A person’s opinions are critical, as they can, in a way, curate their taste, their experiences, and so on. Make sure to use social listening and see how your competitors use your prospects’ opinions to influence them.
Create buyer personas, posts, campaigns, or even your entire content calendar while keeping these opinions in mind.
Getting your prospects’ opinions is not easy, but your conversion rates will show you it’s rewarding.
Gathering Psychographic Data
Analytics and Questionnaires
Gathering psychographic data and forming your social media calendar and your content calendar accordingly is not that difficult, provided you know where to look. Luckily, there are more than enough methods to collect all the information you need.
You can check your audience’s interests on your Google Analytics page. This will give you more insight into what your prospects love about your niche and help you create a targeted message – and a targeted campaign, as a result.
Google Analytics will show you the type of content that engages better, the age group that converts better, and the segment that swears your content is the best they’ve come across.
Another way to gather all the information you need is to create a questionnaire or a survey. This will allow you to ask all the right questions, get suggestions that will better your product or service, and give you a new outlook on your marketing strategy as a whole.
Use this tactic on your social media audience and the subscribers of your email list. You can also talk to your favorite clients on a one-on-one basis and ask what they love about you and, most importantly, why.
Utilize online quizzes on your social media platforms, create polls and email marketing campaigns that will ask for a rating of your product or service.
Audience Insights
Perhaps the most important source of information in our case, as your audience’s insights are the bread-and-butter of a social media marketer – or a marketer in general, for that matter.
Since people share and like content and posts that have to do with their interests and their day-to-day lives on social media, you can get a lot of information on the IAO variables.
That type of information can be the make-or-break factor of your content marketing strategy and your campaigns as a whole.
Audience insights can also show you how your competitors are perceived by what is your target audience. You can use the weaknesses your audience pinpoints to your advantage.
Sales and Support
Your sales and support teams hold all the power, as they’re the point of contact between your brand and your customers. By using empathy in customer service, your sales and support agents can give you some much-needed data, the most common questions, and the best feedback regarding your prospects’ emotional response. This can come in handy when brainstorming ideas for your next social media marketing campaign.
The feedback your sales and support teams can gather may stem from questions like the following:
- How did our product/service help you in your daily life?
- How would you feel if there was an upgrade to our product/service?
- Would you refer our product/service to your friends and family? If so, why us and not a competitor?
Super-Pro Tip:Never underestimate the difference a chatbot can make when you’re looking for psychographic data.
How to Use Psychographic Data to Make a Difference
Let’s assume that you’ve gathered all the data you need. There are several ways to use your psychographics and create content that will make a difference, both conversion-wise and as far as brand awareness is concerned.
When it comes to your website, you need to make the audience nod in appreciation or agreement when reading one of the pages.
Suppose we’re talking about an email campaign meant to promote your upcoming webinar. In that case, you need actionable verbs that gently lead the audience to the action you’d like them to take and copy that will pinpoint the problems as they perceive them and the solution that will speak to them and make a difference in their lives.
Implementing psychographic segmentation and data on your blog can make all the difference. Use language that addresses your audience’s pain points. Create content that everyone will be able to read and enjoy. And make sure to utilize all of the issues stressed in your competitors’ blog posts’ comments. That way, you’ll have a resource that your ideal audience is actively looking for.
Psychographics can also help you with your pre-existing email list, allowing you to create highly targeted content for your email marketing campaigns.
Take a good look at your data. What was the email that had the most opens? What was the one that had the best CTR? What made them so successful? Better yet, “Why” was that email so successful?
Pinpoint the element that made your audience love your email newsletter. Was it the subject line? If so, what made the subject line make all the difference?
Were the newsletter templates you used the perfect match for your audience? If so, what made them resonate? The colors, the images, or the overall feel?
Answering the questions above will help you understand the deeper reasons why your target audience will resonate with your brand.
What About your Brand Values?
Psychographic data are a tool to unveil what your ideal customers believe and value. It would be a shame if you didn’t align their values with your brand’s values.
Aligned brand values mean increased loyalty which, in turn, can create a different communication concept between you and your audience, one that will feel more exclusive and in-tune with them.
And since exclusivity and aligned values go a long way, your prospects won’t hesitate to share your branded content with their circle and people that have the same values, giving you a chance to reach a larger chunk of your audience.
What about Social Media Ads?
I know this is probably one of the most critical components of your digital marketing game. Social media ads can create a lot of awareness, engagement, and, finally, revenue.
Using psychographics for your social media ads comes with a series of benefits. You can write ad copy that will be appealing and will “speak” to your audience on a deeper level.
So, pinpoint the platform your audience uses, first and foremost. This may play a role in the automation tools you’ll need as well. This graph breaks the platforms down by age group.
There’s no use in creating targeted ads on the wrong social media platform. If your audience belongs to the 18-24 age group, you need your ads to resonate with your Instagram followers, while the 25-29 age group would love a Youtube ad.
If you’re a Non-Profit Organization (NPO) and you want to target your Instagram followers, for example, make sure that your ad won’t focus on the “18-24 years of age” aspect. This is a demographic. Instead, it would be best if you remembered that people of that age that belong to your target audience are interested in social justice issues, trying to help others, and perhaps like to volunteer.
The above elements are psychographics that can help you write perfect content. It makes a world of difference and allows you to connect to your ideal audience right down to their very beliefs.
The Takeaway
Using psychographics on your social media marketing campaigns allows you to understand your brand’s customers, first and foremost.
Psychographic data allow marketers to create exciting content, ads, landing pages, and posts that will speak to a brand’s prospect on a deeper, personal level.
Gathering such data could be a little harder than just using demographics, but in the end, connecting to your audience on a personal level is well worth the effort.
