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Demographics vs Psychographics and why they matter

Demographics vs Psychographics and why they matter

Usually, when talking about ideal clients, most business owners would mention their ideal clients’ age, sex, country of origin, job title and similar stuff. Although demographics are a vital asset to consider, the power lies in taking into account demographics and psychographics together.

The reason is that you want to consider your ideal clients as HUMAN BEING first and foremost, with their own identity, personality, likes, dislikes and so on. We are conscious and ethical entrepreneurs, remember? Focuing solely on demographics won’t allow you to deepen your research and to truly reach your soul clients.

But I digress. Let’s go back to basics and start from the beginning.

What are demographics and psychographics?

When thinking about demographics, the most powerful example I was given was to think about a dating profile.

Whether you have used 10 different apps/websites or 1, you probably know the drill. You log in, insert your name a sexy pic, and drop a bunch of generic stuff about yourself. You might include your age, where are you living at the moment, your work, your favorite food, and the name of your dog.

Although this is enough for some people to swipe right, is not giving a clear idea of who you are. You did not include your deepest fears and burning desires (and please do not ever share this on a dating profile), but it gives a very general idea of what you might like.

When we talk about psychographics, we have the opportunity to go deeper. And if we wanna keep on rocking the idea of dating, let’s see psychographics as a relationship. This is the time where we (usually) open ourselves and get vulnerable. YOu got to know your partner and you feel safe enough to share not only the beautiful, but the hard, fragile, and hurt parts of ourselves.

Now that we got all emotional and soulful, let’s apply this to your business

In business, your demographics are the basics and the psychographics are the fears, desires, and what they are struggling with at the moment. You need demographics to pre-qualify your audience, and psychographics to target only the perfect clients (not only those that you’d enjoy working with, but also those that you can confidently help succeed).

Some general demographics could include stuff like female creative entrepreneurs, who have been in business for a few years, aged between 25-34, from Canada.
Another example could be young professional juggling a corporate 9to5 whit a burning desire to start their own business on the side.

Just by reading these two different examples, you know how different the two audiences are, yet you have no clue about their struggles, hence is gonna be very hard to solve a problem for them.

That’s when psychographics are gonna take over the scene

With psychographics, you can unleash your stalker alter-ego (who was dying to get back in the game) and find everything you reeeeally need to know from your ideal clients.⁠⁠

You can find out things like their inner desires, internal and philosophical problems, or what keeps them up at night.⁠ Those are GOLD information for you and your business, because instead of marketing to stay at home mums, you are narrowing it down to nerdy and tech savvy stay at home mums that dream of running their side hustle effortlessly without drawing into admin work.

Can you feel the difference?

Demographics and psychographics help you narrowing down your audiences⁠

And this is probably why, as a brand startegist, one of my favorite thing to do is deep audience research. Essentially, I help setting up my clients for success knowing that they will talk to the right people, the right pain points, and the right desires.

demographics and psychographics help you narrow down your audience

So you know that demographics and psychographics are good for you, but do they actually add up to the overall client experience?

Short answer: YES
Long answer: let’s change our point of view.

What was the worst pitch you have ever received?

I ain’t no magician, but it was probably something along these lines:

“Hey [name, likely to be wrong or someone else’s name], I am loving your content! Your feed is incredible and so educational. Since you are so interest in [this topic], I would like to personally invite you to join my Facebook group where we have weekly mini training on [this topic]. I am sure you’d like it here is the link to join!”

Or, even worse:

“Hey [wrong name as per usual], I love your feed and the content you provide for your audience! You seem very knowledgeable. How long have you been in business? And what are your goals for 2021? If you want to work towards making consistent 5k/months while working less than 20 mins a day, I am now accepting application for [blah blah blah and more bullshit]. Is this something you would be interested in?”

Besides the feeling of ickyiness, what the two cold pitch have in common?

They are treating you like a 1D human being, and are only touching on demographics. Every entrepreneur wants to work less and make more money. But do you think this is enough to win my trust, my vulnerability and, most importantly, my cash?⁠

Demographics vs Psychographics. Usually when talking about ideal clients, most business owners would mention their ideal clients' age, sex, country of origin, job title and similar stuff. Although demographics are a vital asset to consider, the power lies in taking into account demographics and psychographics together.

The solution to sleazy cold pitches is demographics and psychographics.

By blending the two, you will have a pretty well-rounded audience persona, and engaging in conversations is gonna sounds much more natural!⁠

Already with demographics + psychographics, you have a pretty well-rounded audience persona.⁠ It will have some demographics aspect so you know who you are talking to on a surface level, and you will be also able to understand the intrinsic problems they are facing.⁠ Knowing this information about your audience will enable you to properly create solutions for them, [your specific human beings, experiencing specific problems], and not just solve generic problems that half the population has⁠

⁠I think it’s best if I close the blog post here before I get very mad at the dozen of people who cold-pitched me in the past.
…but before I do, I would love to hear about your worst pitch, and what psychographic they were missing! If you are shy, you can send me a DM on Instagram 😉

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Hi! I'm Sonia

CEO & Founder of Wildly Creating: a brand consultancy firm for the freedom-obsessed online entrepreneur who is ready to transform their business into a liberating, true-to-self personal brand, and awaken the industry leader within. 

Curious about my story? Take a barefoot walk to my about page!

2 thoughts on “Demographics vs Psychographics and why they matter”

  1. Psychographics are less obvious than geographic, demographic, and behavioral measures, and require digging beyond the surface, but they are just as helpful for understanding target markets. The study of people’s attitudes and interests, often studied in conjunction with typical demographic data allows for a more complete understanding of audiences. Luckily, there are an abundance of AI tools available to do this work for you. The better you understand your audience, the better you can market to them, which leads to better campaigns and saved time, money, and energy- everything a marketer could want.

    1. omg -yes! This is the point of deeply research your audience before starting to market to them. Psychographics are less obvious but are also what enable you to create a perfect audience persona! Thank you for your comment 🙂

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