The Incredible Power of Understanding Your Target Market's Psychographics

I often have clients who have difficulty understanding why I put so much emphasis on understanding the demographics and Psychographics of a target market. So I have pulled this illustration out of an industry that most of you have probably never looked at for an example of how to run your business.

Disclaimer here: if you are a person that has a hard time understanding how anything in a radically different industry than your own could have any relevance to your business, you might feel offended by my using an example from an industry that I am guessing neither of us wants anything to do with.

You have now been fairly warned. Because the example I will be using is from the 900-phone sex chat industry. And to answer your question, no, I have not pulled this example out of any personal experience, but out of an article in DM news.

This company had for years placed a quarter page advertisement in numerous magazines. This advertisement had proven profitable for a number of years. They had tested in a variety of magazines and used the returning data to determine which were the most profitable magazines and then they ran it again and again in those magazines.

Then they made one little change to the ad. They added one short sentence, nothing else, and response went up over 40%. Now remember, this ad had been profitable for them for years, but with one slight change they dramatically increased its profitability.

That one line added to the bottom of the ad was this:

The charge will appear on your credit card statement as “SB Supply Company”.

So why in the world would one sentence about the billing arrangements cause a 40% increase in response rate? To answer that we need to go back to the demographics of their target market. What do we know about the people most likely to call? They are:

• Male
• Traveling alone on business
• Usually representatives or executives of companies
• Married
• Have children

And the Psychographics:

• They would be very embarrassed if anyone ever found out about them calling
• Someone might look at their credit card statement (wife or business)

So, here we have a company rep sitting in his hotel and he sees this ad-- what is the primary reason he wouldn’t call? The embarrassment of having to explain a charge on the credit card.
At the bottom of this ad, they drop this little statement:

The charge will appear on your credit card statement as “SB Supply Company”.

Answering the unasked question in the minds of their most probable customer. They don’t have to worry about that embarrassment of explaining because it looks like a legitimate item that won’t draw attention.

Now that you see the statement and the explanation it might seem obvious. But ideas like this usually only come after someone goes through the bother of really trying to understand their target market.

Do you understand your target market? Do you know what unasked questions are in their minds? Do you know what fears they are experiencing? Have you walked a mile in their shoes?

Sometimes you are too close to your own business to see these opportunities, so step outside of your business and look at it as a client would look at it.

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For more information about how to enhance your business, visit my page Who & Why or send me an email at sethgetz@gmail.com.