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You don't have to actually put customers through psychoanalysis, but today it isn't enough to know that your typical customer or prospect is a married white male with 2.5 kids earning $75,000 a year. Smart marketers these days are more interested in whether a consumer prefers golf or tennis, attends religious services regularly, and enjoys rock and roll or classical music. With information about lifestyle, values and interests, plus an understanding of personality traits and human behavior garnered from psychology and sociology, psychographic research gets inside the head of the consumer. Knowing more about how your audience thinks improves your ability to target messages to highly segmented groups of like-minded individuals and to predict how those individuals are likely to behave.
Using psychographics for more accurate predictions
Marketing research experts say that using only standard demographic data — age, gender, income, etc. — we can predict a consumer's next purchase within a given category (financial services, travel, automotive, etc.) with 18 percent accuracy. However, when we combine demographic and psychographic factors — activities, attitudes, behaviors, interests and values - the accuracy with which we can predict the next purchase soars up to 82 percent. By allowing you to match products with consumers who are most likely to buy them, psychographic segmentation improves the efficiency and effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Developments in database technology and advanced data analytics make it easier and more affordable for marketers to create and use highly detailed consumer profiles for more precisely targeted communications.
Using psychographics to change behavior
Psychographic research can also drive your creative message. For example, tobacco industry giant Philip-Morris created two different youth anti-smoking advertising campaigns. Using demographic data, one campaign targeted teens with "Think. Don't Smoke" as its theme. The other targeted parents of teens with the message "Talk to your kids about smoking. They'll listen." Recent research published in the American Journal of Public Health shows the youth-targeted ads had very little effect on teen smoking behavior, and teen viewing of the ads targeted to parents actually increased the likelihood of teen smoking.
In contrast, the "Truth" campaign produced by the American Legacy Foundation, an anti-smoking advocacy group, has been very effective in reducing teen smoking. Results from the Florida Youth Tobacco Survey showed an 11 percent decrease in teen smoking prevalence after the first 10 months of the campaign. What made the difference? Psychographics. Research found that teens most likely to engage in high-risk behaviors such as smoking see themselves as rebels. Based on this insight, the creative messages center on young people involved in rebellion against a big, predatory, profit-hungry cigarette industry that targets teens. Using psychographics to drive creative made the "Truth" campaign a success.
If you'd like more information about combining demographic and psychographic data to make your marketing communications more efficient and effective, contact Adina W. Wasserman, Ph.D., Director of Market Research at awasserman@first-marketing.com or call 954.956.3258.  |
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