Okay, you’ve made the extremely smart decision to partner with Evolve (insert textbook high-five here) and we’re deep into an early discovery conversation. Then one of our team members asks, “So what can you tell us about your target audience?” A few moments pass before you begin feeding us information like – women, age 25-50, live within a 25 mile radius of Anytown, USA, household income of 100k/year, etc, etc. While everything you’ve said is very important and helps us to make educated decisions and form effective strategies, it offers only a small glimpse of your audience. “Demographic” information like I’ve listed above is great, but what we’re really after is creating a “Psychographic” profile of the people that experience your product or service every day. It’s one of the cornerstones of our Creative Brief, and once established helps to drive strategic and creative decisions with a much deeper purpose. Don’t worry, we’ll do a majority of the heavy lifting to acquire this information, but we’re asking you because you’ve already established a close relationship with your audience. Just imagine yourself as the primer before we go full-throttle.
What’s a Psychographic Profile?
Psychographic. Pretty intense word, huh? It’s fitting because this is often one of the most intense areas of exploration that we’ll embark on together. In a nutshell, Psychographic Segmentation involves dividing your audience into segments based upon different personality traits, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles of consumers. This segmentation is great because it allows us to approach strategic and creative challenges in a much more focused and deliberate way. Once we begin understanding how your customers live, what is important to them and why they make their choices, we begin opening new doors to exciting potential for your business.
Here’s a quick example of the differences between demographic information and a psychographic information:
Demographic Information:
- Female
- Aged 45-65
- Married, with children
- Dealing with issues of weight gain, diabetes, lack of energy or hormonal imbalance
- Household income $100K+
Psychographic Information:
- Concerned with health and appearance
- Wants a healthy lifestyle, but doesn’t have much time
- Enjoys going online in the evenings, big fan of Pinterest
- Tends to favor quality over economy
- Finds fulfillment in her career and family
- Values time with a small group of friends
The difference in the two becomes quite clear, and you can likely already imagine the impact this knowledge will have not only on the decisions we make creatively and strategically, but in the way you approach the operation of your own business.
One Profile to Rule Them All? Not Quite.
Once we’ve shaped your audience from a psychographic perspective, we’ll then begin segmenting those people into sub-groups. We’ve now created multiple avenues that allow us to connect with specific people for specific reasons. By doing so, we decrease the chance that our message falls on deaf ears and increase the chance of making genuine, meaningful connections.
Brian Taylor Creative Director
