With over 1.7 billion websites on the internet, it goes without saying that the competition to get eyeballs on your content is pretty stiff.
Gone are the days when all you had to do to attract visitors to your website was just put up a website and slap a few pages of content on it. Today, thanks to Google’s quality guidelines, the quality of the content published on the internet is very good. That’s why you need to move beyond just creating quality content, but create content that drives results.
So…How do you do that?
One word – psychographics.
What are Psychographics?
Psychographics is the study of the key cognitive and emotional factors that influence a person’s behavior. This mainly deals with the factors behind the reason why people do things. Psychographic data is based on a person’s activities, interests, and opinions (AIOs).
Tapping into this data offers you a gateway into your reader’s soul – so to say. It helps you understand your audience on levels that make them feel you’re either a close friend or a psychic. Either way, they’ll want to hear more of what you have to say.
Psychographics vs Demographics – What’s the Difference?
Many marketers have relied for a long time on demographic data to build their buyer personas. However, few have delved deep into psychographic data. But, is there any difference between demographics and psychographics?
By definition, demographics is the study of who a person is. This involves factors such as:
- Age
- Gender
- Race
- Marital status
- Number of children
- Occupation
- Annual income
- Education level
On the other hand, psychographics deal with the why of a person. That is, why they behave and make decisions the way they do. Examples of psychographic factors include (but are not limited to):
- Values
- Interests
- Attitudes
- Lifestyle
- Personality type
- Social class
As you can see, when it comes to content creation (and any conversion-focused online discipline), psychographics have a greater impact than demographics. But that is not to say you should throw demographics out the window.
Demographics and psychographics are merely 2 sides of the same coin. As such, they are to be used in tandem.
3 Reasons Psychographic Data is Important to Your Content Creation
Let’s quickly look at 3 main reasons psychographics should always be a part of your content creation process.
1. Offers a Personalized Experience
The main reason is that psychographic data helps you align your messaging to speak directly to your target audience – it gives your audience a personalized experience. There’s a strong case for marketing personalization. And in the highly competitive environment you’re publishing your content in, you’ll want to set yourself apart from other publishers.
The solution?
Give your readers a personalized experience with your content. Yes, demographics can help you here, but only so far. Your readers need to feel like every word you’ve penned was written specifically for them. That’s exactly what psychographics will help you achieve. By touching on the things that matter to your audience the most, your content will feel more personalized. And yes, personalization is a big deal. Research shows that 88% of customers expect a personalized experience on all digital platforms.
2. Increases Engagement
One of the biggest reasons to leverage psychographic data in your content creation is that it increases engagement. The reason behind this is that people love spending time with people who understand them. If your content makes them feel like you get them, they’ll engage with your content on a deeper level. And as you well know, engagement is the doorway to conversions.
3. Fosters Brand Loyalty
Another reason psychographics is a powerful content creation ingredient is that they help foster brand loyalty.
Why is this?
Simple. People generally trust people and brands that share the same values, principles, belief systems, interests, etc. This will particularly be more effective when you align your value proposition to your audience’s core values. When your audience feels they connect with your content, it will be you they’ll think of first when they need information related to your product or services.
3 Simple (Yet Effective) Ways to Gather Psychographic Data
Gathering psychographic data is not as difficult as it may seem. And no, you don’t need to hire a psychic to read your audience’s minds – even though psychographic data is more qualitative than quantitative. Without further ado, let’s quickly look at 3 ways you can use to get psychographic insights into your target audience.
1. Social Media
One of the reasons social media is one of the best places to gather psychographic intel is the fact that people voice what matters to them there. Using social listening tools, you can collect important information such as:
- Their grievances
- Questions they are asking
- What they expect from brands like yours
All this information is content creation gold for the savvy marketer.
2. Surveys
Surveys are another great way to get psychographic data about your audience. By asking open-ended questions, you can easily get to know what motivates, inspires, or even troubles your audience. Valuable intel when designing a content strategy.
3. Website Analytics
Your website analytics dashboard is a great place to go to if you want to understand your audience’s psychographics. By analysing the kind of content they interact with the most or offers that drive the most clicks, you’ll gain insight into their main pain points, values, or interests.
How to Use Psychographics to Create Content that Drives Results
Incorporating psychographics into your content may require a bit of extra effort on your part but it will be well worth it. Here are a few ways you can use psychographics to power your content:
Build a Psychographic Profile
A psychographic profile is a unique description of a person’s interests, personality, lifestyle, and all other psychographic data you’ve collected on them. In essence, a psychographic profile distills your audience’s core values and beliefs so as to help you understand what really matters to them. It is this understanding that should inform your messaging and direct your content creation.
Once you have your psychographic profile, you have the secret sauce to creating content that moves the needle.
Use Language that Appeals to Your Audience
Once you have your audience’s psychographic profile, it becomes easier to understand the language that appeals to them. In other words, you’re better able to know the words, tone, and imagery that appeals to them. For example, if your audience is primarily made up of people who are passionate about planet conversation, words like green and sustainability immediately pique their interest.
One of the most important places in your content to leverage psychographic data is in your headline. An effective headline doesn’t just hint at what your content is all about. More than that, it must tug at the soul – using psychographics as the hook. Another great place to use psychographic data is your call-to-action.
Understanding your audience’s psychographics is the key to not only grabbing your target audience’s attention but keeping them engaged as well.
Build Content Topics Around Psychographics
Let’s be honest – people don’t really care about your brand. They only care about what they can benefit from their relationship with your brand.
This is why creating product-centric content is futile.
Content that people love, consume, and share, is customer-centric. It leverages psychographic data (from keyword research to content production) and focuses on what the audience needs. One brand that does this exceptionally well is Casper, the highly-successful mattress maker. They don’t market their mattresses in their content, instead, they sell sleep.
No matter what industry you’re in, it’s important to understand your audience well – especially the things that keep them awake at night. Creating content around the questions your ideal customer is asking is one of the best content creation strategies you can ever employ. Of course, you can (nay, must) tie in your product into the content. But keep in mind, the hero of the story in your content should never be your product. It must be your customer, with the help of your product.
Leverage Examples and Case Studies Based on Psychographics
Study content that drives results (in any niche or vertical) and you’ll discover that most of it has one important element – examples. But for your examples to be impactful, your audience has to relate to them. Again, this is where psychographics come in. By understanding your audience’s interests and values, you’re better positioned to know the kind of examples that will inspire, motivate, or drive conversions.
One brand that does this very well is Nike. Although they are in the sportswear industry, most of their content is not about their products – it’s about the people that use their products. That’s why most of the content features user-generated content to appeal to their target audience. Here’s a classic example:
If there’s one (almost) universal desire everyone has, it’s the desire to succeed and be great. And whether you’re into sports or not, it’s easy to relate to a brand that works hard to bring out the best in you. That’s exactly what Nike has been doing for a long time, resulting in them growing one of the largest followings in the sports apparel and equipment industry.
Psychographics – The Missing Key to Creating Hyper-Personalized Content
Does this mean you should ditch demographics and other data in favor of psychographics?
Not at all.
Content marketing is a complex field that requires that you create and market content that resonates deeply with your audience. And to successfully do this, you have to pull all the stops – particularly if you’re in an extremely competitive niche. Creating great content is not about focusing on one element, it’s about marrying the different factors your audience cares about into one piece of content they’ll find useful, timely, and engaging.
Psychographics, for many, is the missing key to creating hyper-personalized content. Speaking of content creation, if you struggle to create quality content for your brand, try out DivvyHQ’s content creation platform. It will help you streamline the content creation process and make you a more efficient content marketing machine. Request a demo today!