How to Use Mind Over Matter to Acquire More Customers
Psychographics outweigh demographics when communicating with customers. Learn 9 ways to research your customer’s psychographics and how to apply the idea to your website.
Has anyone ever told you, “It’s not about you?” When it comes to websites, that’s especially true. Building a website that pleases visitors is about them — the ones you’re trying to attract and engage. You need to understand how they think and what they care about to communicate in a way that gets them to do what you want them to do. Psychographics Over Demographics Demographics alone — the hard facts, like age, education and income — can be limiting. Crossing boundaries to focus on what’s meaningful to visitors, rather than for example making generalizations about someone’s age, is more effective for creating real connections with consumers. That meaning is captured in the term psychographics — a person’s occupation, interests, lifestyle and personality (values, opinions, attitudes). The better you understand your consumer, the more you can communicate in a persuasive way.
How to Research Your Audience’s Psychographics Understanding your own customers, will help you find more of the same. Do at least one of the following, and you’ll be on your way to understanding what makes your customer tick:
Ask your customers — in person or through a survey — why they chose you, what media or websites they used to find you, why they chose what they do for a living, where they volunteer, etc. You’ll need to be creative to get at the information that reveals their psychographics.
Interview your own customer support and sales people.
Website traffic data will reveal what interests your visitors most.
Plant links in your newsletters, then track what readers are clicking on.
Observe reactions to your blog.
Use your customer’s social profiles to see what they’re talking about.
Perform secondary market research, especially If you’re not in business yet. At Dempsee.com, you'll find how-to's and low-cost market research resources.
If you have a specific geography, get psychographics by zip code.
To see what a full consumer profile includes, get the list
Translate Psychographics to Your Website
Website creators imagine personas to help them develop meaningful content. A persona is a fictional person defined by their psychographics, as well as behaviors and demographics. Thinking about who you’re communicating with in this way makes it easier to write for them. I often think of people I know who fit a specific profile and pretend I’m having a conversation with them. Overall, you want to show the visitor you understand them, their needs and problems. Choose the words and imagery, tone and style that resonates with how they think. Speak in terms they understand and care about.
Design: What will your customer appreciate and value in terms of the overall look and feel? How important is design to them, or do they just want to get to the information quickly?
Navigation and layout: What will your visitor want to know in priority order; first, second, third, etc. What are they thinking when deciding to make a purchase? Organize your information to match.
Headline: Headlines should always offer a benefit to the reader and achieve the right tone.
Content: Make a list of the questions customers have in mind when they visit a website like yours. The answers you write become a good foundation for an FAQ page, but this material could form the basis for your entire site. Google is especially fond of websites that respond to what people are asking while doing a search.
Call to Action: For each persona, think about what would motivate them to do what you want. Explain the benefit they’ll derive from taking that action.
