Are Demographics Dead?
March 19th, 2008 Dina at Wordfeeder.comOne of my copywriting clients has challenged me to write an article claiming that “demographics and psychographics are becoming obsolete.” The rationale being that he attracts coaching clients from all ages, income levels and walks of life.
I spent a restless night with this one rolling around in my head. My client wants me to revoke everything that’s been drilled into my brain for the last 15 years about target markets and ideal customers and who I’m writing to?
When someone makes a bold assertion like this one, I’m inclined to analyze their marketing behavior. So what’s my client been doing all this time to bring in such a vast and varied smorgasbord of clientele?
1. He’s on the web and promoting heavily. This client is no slouch when it comes to putting it out there. He has a healthy appetite for blogging and he offers an open book of good thoughts and solid advice for readers to draw from.
Let me just say here: web and print are two different animals. Print limits you to a certain number of words, ideas, and copies. If you market to the wrong audience in a piece of print material, you pretty much just threw a couple thousand dollars into the wind.
But on the web, you get to blip out thoughts at a much higher rate of frequency. If you find yourself talking to the wrong people today, it’s easily remedied tomorrow. The trick is to keep on putting it out there and say a few things that could be considered memorable. My client knows how to do this and it’s bringing him great success.
2. He’s marketing to himself. My copywriting client is a coach whose professional experience was shaped by a personal epiphany. So when he talks to “his future client,” he’s really talking to a less-evolved version of himself; the guy who he was yesterday. His former problems are their current problems. His values are their values.
Demographically, the ages or economic levels of his clientele might vary. But I think here we’re looking at a repeating psychographic for sure. Can you say this about your own customers?
When you talk to yourself in your marketing, you end up attracting two types of readers. The first type has already reached the place where you’ve arrived. This reader feels a certain kinship with you and might end up a friend, colleague or business partner of sorts. The other reader is the kind who aspires to what you have. This reader might become your client, mentee or protege. Coaching is the ideal industry for “attraction style” marketing.
3. His integrity comes across. My client is intelligent, well-read, successful, confident and honest. This shows up in whatever he writes. If he’s talking about problems or issues, he’s never complaining. Instead, he’s offering solutions and reassurance. These are paternal qualities that endear many people to him for his knowledge and wisdom.
The web is a social medium and so you get back what you give. If you’re unhappy, hopeless, whiny, angry, insulting, or short-sighted, you will draw the attention of others who are unhappy, hopeless, whiny, angry, insulting and short-sighted. If you’re brilliant, effervescent, good humored, generous and tolerant, you will soon find yourself surrounded by others who are brilliant, effervescent, good humored, generous and tolerant. Take a look around and see who’s hanging around on whose blogs, and you’ll understand what I mean.
Returning to the original question: are demographics and psychographics dead? As someone who writes copy that pitches products and services, I would have to say absolutely not - demographics and psychographics are still very much alive and kicking in the marketing world.
But are there some industries who can get away with attraction-style marketing and not have to worry so much about analyzing the ideal customer to death. Coaching is one of them.
The client I mentioned above embodies the following characteristics:
1. intelligent
2. wealthy
3. successful
4. confident
5. honorable
6. optimistic
7. idealistic
Simply by being himself on his blog, he’s targeting people who aspire to these same traits.
But this might not be true for someone who sells software, life insurance, power tools, graphic design services or hula hoops. And what makes those industries markedly different is they’re far less intimate than coaching. Sure, these days everyone wants to have a relationship with their customers - but coaching is one where that relationship is a deep, personal and enduring one.
How about your industry? Do you think it’s important to define demographics and psychographics before writing your website copy, blogging, or putting articles out there for others to benefit from?
The copywriter wants to know.
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March 19th, 2008 at 8:57 am
I’m an ‘old school’ marketing kinda guy, and I firmly believe that your marketing efforts - whatever they might be - have to be aimed at a particular demographic or target in order to be effective. I don’t care what you’re saying, if you’re not saying it to people who are wanting to hear it, then what’s the point?
March 19th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Amen to that.
March 19th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Dina,
I couldn’t have said it better myself. I would wholeheartedly agree that coaching is a way of providing a unique, custom-fit solution to problems and challenges. Counter intuitively, the more unique and personalized the solution, the broader its application.
David
March 19th, 2008 at 11:13 am
David,
You said:
“The more unique and personalized the solution, the broader its application.”
I lOVE that!
Thanks for stopping by. :)
July 29th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Demographics may have mattered decades ago when mass media was just hitting its stride, mostly as a way to eliminate wastage in media buys. But having sliced and diced data for more than 15 years to mine for demographic gold, I have been forced to conclude this: the usual demographic segments of age, income, presence of children, gender, etc. provide little if any lift in termns of response. Unless you’re talking about the severely obvious (i.e. selling dentures? Probably an older group you want to talk to), demographics mean diddly. Time after time I’ve seen highly targeted, carefully selected “look-alike” - characteristic-based audiences respond almost identically to random sample groups to the same message in the same medium.
And time is what it is really all about. Marketing is truly effective when you can reach someone with a relevant message WHEN they are ready to buy. To elaborate on the point above, “if you’re not saying it to people who are wanting to hear it, then what’s the point?”: What makes you think 27-yr-old-male-75k-income guy wants what you’re selling until he actually has a need for it? This is why a strong brand is so essential to a product - it keeps the message in front of people until they’re ready to buy. Up til the past 10 years, marketers have had to rely on building a steady brand drumbeat to keep their brand proposition constantly in front of potential buyers. That is frustratingly expensive and wasteful. That’s starting to change with the intelligent use of the web, SEO, paid and natural search, and social media market positioning. Thank God. Now marketers may actually be able to demonstrate some hard-core ROI by finding, drawing and tracking the customers through digital media.
Bottom line - show me someone who says their demographic segmenting is driving their marketing success, and I’ll show you someone who hasn’t tested against a random sample.
July 29th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Hi Kent,
Thank you for taking so much time to carefully craft a response, I’m happy to have you here.
Now, let me just sum up your thoughts here.
First you said that demo/psychographics are dead, and that it’s more about the timing - being there when they’re ready to buy.
Then you said, years ago we had to keep on “beating the drum” in order to attract business.
THEN you said, “but thanks to the internet and digital media, all that has changed.”
(I’m paraphrasing - anyone who wants to know exactly what you said can re-read your post.)
It seems to me that marketing has NOT changed - you’re still “beating the drum” same as ever, only this time it’s a virtual drum.
Thanks for your ideas!