Psychographics: Understanding your ideal customer

Netting potential customers or clients and making them loyal to your brand is how your business grows. It's likely your most significant obstacle in converting your target market.

You know the drill: research your potential customer base, get to know the demographic most likely to purchase your product or service, craft a stunner of a marketing campaign, and wait for the emails, phone calls, or walk-ins.

Those actions are all good things to do. However, in addition to figuring out your ideal customer demographics, you should figure out your perfect customer psychographics.

I'll confess: I hadn't heard of the concept of psychographics until recently, but the more I researched it, the more critical a part of your marketing research it is.

What is psychographics?

Psychographics, also known as psychographic segmentation, includes the common interests and beliefs of your potential clientele: customs, outlooks, preferences, values, feelings, character traits, pastimes, and quirks.

Ideally, psychographics will put the meat and bones on the general characteristics and bullet-point lists that usually describe your target audience. You'll get to know your ideal customers the same way their friends and families know them.

Think about how you know and interact with the people in your life. You have a feel for their problems, hopes, and aspirations. You've most likely informed them of an app, service, or product that can solve their problems or meet their needs.

Now apply the way you know and interact with your friends and family to potential customers.

How to begin collecting psychographics

Here are a few suggestions on how to get started in understanding the psychographics of your target audience:

• Surveys: Whether online or face-to-face, a survey can give you direct feedback on a potential client's attitudes, mindsets, and hobbies, including how your service might align with that client's psychographics.

• Ask others in your field or business sector: Seek out others in your industry willing to cooperate with you and ask if they can provide any insights about your shared customer base.

• Read customer reviews: Consult customer reviews for products and services similar to yours and see if you can glean any information about how better to fill out your customer's psychographic profile.

Buyer personas: Imagining your target buyer with a profile

Now, you can begin constructing your prospective client with a buyer persona/psychographic profile. Here's an example:

• Male

• Age 35-50

• Married, with children

• Household income $50,000+

Psychographic details:

• Looking to start an exercise program, but isn't sure he has the time

• Enjoys spending time with his kids, and wants to include them in any exercise he does

• Frequently reads weight loss and fitness blogs

• Looks to invite his work friends to play sports on weekends

With a psychographic profile, you can get into the head of a prospective customer and imagine how he or she thinks and feels.

As you look into figuring out how your potential customers think and feel, you'll be able to refine your marketing and selling services and products with the benefit of having as close a real person as you can.