Pyschographics vs. Demographics: What’s the difference and why does it matter?

Demographics explain who your target audience is, while psychographics explain why they are your target.

As a starting point, demographics is a great way to narrow down who you want to target with your marketing and advertising efforts, dividing your market into broad segments. The problem with demographics is that while, in principle they make sense, they can also miss the mark significantly when it comes to driving conversions as they don’t provide any cognitive markers and assumes that all 35-44 year old females behave the same way. Here’s the famous Prince Charles and Ozzy Osbourne example of why demographics alone won’t cut it:

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Clearly two very different personas here falling under the same demographic criteria. Now, I don’t know Prince Charles or Ozzy Osbourne personally but I can guess they have very different interests, hobbies and probably beliefs. This is where psychographics come in; these pertain to a users psychological and cognitive attributes, accounting for their beliefs, values and goals. So while demographics are still an important factor, they essentially don’t mean much when they aren’t used in conjunction with psychographics to understand consumer behaviour and habits.