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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:
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.
When you consider the reach and scalability of digital marketing platforms, understanding psychographics is key in reaching the right users and driving high quality traffic to your landing pages. Consider the size of YouTube, more than 2 billion active monthly users; Facebook, more than 1 billion users; and the Google Display Network with the ability to reach up to 90% of global internet users. That’s a lot of people (and a lot of potential for wasted budget!)
Consider this, you’re launching YouTube campaigns to promote a line of organic makeup. The makeup might even be specific in that it’s perfect for ageing skin complexions and only available to buy in the US. Your target demographic might be females located in the US in the age range of 45+, but even narrowing down YouTubes 2 billion active users within this category is still going to be a massive amount of reach. What’s the guarantee that all of these women are going to be interested in your product at that moment in time? There’s none. Psychographics allow us to narrow this down further. Think about the values and interests of your target audience in this case. They may have an interest in eco-friendly products, they may watch makeup tutorial videos, they may frequently visit salons, etc. etc.
Knowing this information, or at least testing as many theories as you have on your audiences psychographics will help to build a more profitable YouTube campaign in the long run because you’ll be able to create content that matters to your audience, target them on videos you know they are interested in, or narrow down your reach with Google’s pre-defined audience lists (such as Affinity Audiences for those who “Frequently Visit Salons”.
In summary, knowing both also allows you to do a better job of segmenting your audience, targeting the right customers, and positioning your product in your ad campaigns. Long-term, you’ll be building a much more efficient campaign, utilising your budget better and driving profitable results to build the revenue on your bottom line.
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