How to Use Mind Over Matter to Acquire More Customers

If you don’t know what’s on your customer’s mind, what you say on your website won’t matter. Photo: Vassiliki Koutsothanasi

Psychographics outweigh demographics when communicating with customers. Learn 9 ways to research your customer’s psychographics and how to apply the idea to your website.

Has anyone ever told you, “It’s not about you?” When it comes to websites, that’s especially true. Building a website that pleases visitors needs to be about them — the ones you’re trying to attract and engage. Understanding how they think and what they care about will help you communicate in a way that gets them to do what you want them to do. If you show that you "get" them, they're more likely to believe you're the one that can solve their pain, need or concern.

Psychographics Over Demographics

Demographics alone — the hard facts, like age, education and income — can be limiting. Crossing boundaries to focus on what’s meaningful to visitors, rather than for example making generalizations about someone’s age, is more effective for creating real connections with consumers. That meaning is captured in the term psychographics — a person’s occupation, interests, lifestyle and personality (values, opinions, attitudes). The better you understand your consumer, the more you can communicate in a persuasive way. 

How to Research Your Audience’s Psychographics

Understanding your own customers, will help you find more of the same. Do at least one of the following, and you’ll be on your way to understanding what makes your customer tick:

1. Ask your customers — in person or through a survey — why they chose you, what media or websites they used to find you, why they chose what they do for a living, where they volunteer, etc. You’ll need to be creative to get at the information that reveals their psychographics.
2. Interview your own customer support and sales people. 
3. Website traffic data will reveal what interests your visitors most.
4. Plant links in your newsletters, then track what readers are clicking on. 
5. Observe reactions to your blog.
6. Use your customer’s social profiles to see what they’re talking about.
7. Perform secondary market research, especially If you’re not in business yet. At Dempsee.com, you'll find how-to's and low-cost market research resources.
8. If you're targeting a specific geography, there are services like Esri's Tapestry, that provide psychographics by zipcode.
9. Download the consumer profile list

Translate Psychographics to Your Website

Website creators imagine personas to help them develop meaningful content. A persona is a fictional person defined by their psychographics, as well as behaviors and demographics. Thinking about who you’re communicating with in this way makes it easier to write for them. I often think of people I know who fit a specific profile and pretend I’m having a conversation with them. 

Overall, you want to show the visitor you understand them, their needs and problems. Choose the words and imagery, tone and style that resonates with how they think. Speak in terms they understand and care about. 

• Design: What will your customer appreciate and value in terms of the overall look and feel? How important is design to them, or do they just want to get to the information quickly?
• Navigation and layout: What will your visitor want to know in priority order; first, second, third, etc. What are they thinking when deciding to make a purchase? Organize your information to match.
• Headline: Headlines should always offer a benefit to the reader and achieve the right tone. 
• Content: Make a list of the questions customers have in mind when they visit a website like yours. The answers you write become a good foundation for an FAQ page, but this material could form the basis for your entire site. Google is especially fond of websites that respond to what people are asking while doing a search.
• Call to Action: For each persona, think about what would motivate them to do what you want. Explain the benefit they’ll derive from taking that action.

Communicate with the Lego-lover in everyone
Even adults are crazy about them. According to Priceonomics, “…for some, the fun doesn’t stop at puberty. Adult fans of Lego -- or AFOL (pronounced “awful”) -- is a small but passionate confederacy of builders who refuse to believe Lego is just for kids. One AFOL we spoke with says most in the community are ‘educated and/or intelligent, and have some sort of technical background.’ Many are engineers, computer programmers, and hackers… .” 

To get into the mind of the Lego-lover, you could address sophisticated project themes, technical principals or how the blocks are used professionally. Use imagery that sparks ideas, show blueprints or trigger a memory by showing retro photos of Lego-building.