How Do People Work?

Psychographics: the alternative to traditional forms of target marketing based on demographic segmentation, or put simply, the targeting of what people do rather than who they are.

Commonalities determine grouping of consumers: shared affect, shared behaviours, and shared experiences. These are encompassed in cultural attributes that influence how people respond to the environment around them. Dive in.

Psychographics are equal parts praised and feared by marketers for some odd reason. Those who praise them, such as Dave Trott, rightfully conclude that when it comes to actual buying behaviour, it pays to look at actual buying behaviour. Sensible, right?

Those who fear psychographics seem to out of some relentless adherence to ‘traditional’ forms of communication, in which picturesque consumerist mascots are pieced together from the scraps of buyers long past, first-world wet dreams just waiting to surrender themselves entirely to the glory of the Brand™.

*ahem* Onto the point.

For the sake of simple categorisation and the distinctively human tendency to prefer things in groups of three, we can think of psychographics in three ways. There’s the driver (or what motivates someone to do something), there’s the action itself, and there’s the reward.

Shared affect can be considered as the driver. It is how people react to their immediate environment, which influences what they will do in future. It’s the feeling of wanting that people get that motivates them to do stuff. This is the simplest way to determine collective desires.

Status, wealth, power, satiation, validation, reciprocity, and balls-to-the-wall fun are the most commonly shared desires.

Take status, for instance. Peoples’ immediate environment – work, home, social contacts – may emphasise status as necessary for success or acceptance. If people with such motivations buy within your category, the question is: “how can my product give these people status?”

Shared behaviours are simple. It is the action itself. The buying behaviour. The most useful thing that marketers can do here is consider the steps people take to attain their desires. So, if we take our status example, what do people who seek status typically do to attain it? Can these steps be translated into the buying of the product?

Obviously, the goal is to make the action as easy as possible. There shouldn’t be any obstacles whatsoever between the consumer and the product. If they want it, there should be nothing stopping them from having it now.

Shared experiences are simpler yet. They are the endgame; how people feel once they have attained their desires. Typically, with any desire or product or behaviour or motivator there are only three possible outcomes: satisfaction, dissatisfaction, or indifference.

Marketers will often frame such outcomes as hopeful imaginings. It’s almost a war to see which company can make the grandest empty promise. These are all but useless if they do not link back to the actual buying behaviour.

Strip it back. People buy products with the hope that they will receive a good product. Just like people who desire status do so in the hope that they will become more popular or better liked, or have a greater opinion of oneself. Whatever it is, figure it out.

Show parallels between these two things. Create associations between the desires consumers hope to satisfy and the steps that must be taken in order to get to the thing that rewards them with such.

Affect, behaviours, and experiences are all wrapped up in the bubbling, colourful mess of 3am stir-fry that is culture. Often, greater attention is given to sub-cultures than the general culture. But it is the latter that births the former, so why ignore it?

There are preconceptions and stereotypes surrounding almost every category. PC gaming is for nerds who have never touched a woman. Coffee shops are chock full of hipsters. Cologne is bought by sleazy men who think they’re hot shit. Anyone who owns a smart watch is quite obviously a raging douchebag.

Identifying the preconceptions in whatever category you’re selling from is a good first step, as these will influence how people react, consider, and buy within it. Stereotypes influence how people react to the environment, creating a shared affect and desire for things intangible. See how it cycles?

That is psychographics. Shared affect: drivers and desires. Shared behaviours: the steps that consumers take to get them. Shared experiences: what people hope to gain from doing so. And shared cultural attributes: stereotypes of those who buy within the category.

Note that I wrote an entire blog post on psychographics without using the words ‘emotion’, ‘connection’, or ‘engagement’. That’s no accident.  

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