Course: SLF 130 Marketing Practices for the Small Business

Unit 6 Reading

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- Unit 6
- Table of Contents (Selected)
- Unit 6 Glossary (Selected)

Market Research Page 5

Beyond Demographics... who are your customers? | Psychographics refers to a way of segmenting your target market(s) by lifestyle, values, attitudes, social class, or other psychological/ideological factors.  Psychographics goes beyond demographics where a customer is identified by age, gender, race, zip code, etc. Many small businesses appeal to a niche market that has a unique psychographic profile.  Small businesses must be careful not to stereotype customers, but, most of us identify with a group with whom we share values and similar lifestyles. Not only does our self-proclaimed reference group share opinions and attitudes, we tend to share similar preferences for buying products and services.
As a marketer, what comes to mind when you think of groups casually identified as:

- Soccer moms?
- Vegans or vegetarians?
- Back-to-nature folks?
- Yuppies? Corporate movers and shakers?
- Stay at home moms?  Stay at home dads?
- Rural entrepreneurs?
- Local foods advocates?
As a business person developing a product or service, you probably have a target market in mind. But, you should never assume that you already know and understand the target group’s product or service preferences. This is why research is important.

Gone are the days of a one-way communication type of website. A company’s website can be a research tool.  What are some ways to get to really know your customers?

ASK FOR FEEDBACK via your website or through a survey sent to an email list (of addresses provided by customers or interesting persons).

VISIT WEBSITES OR EVENTS visited by your target market.  You can learn what is important to them as well as finding out who your competition might be.

And as has been mentioned before, CONDUCT A FOCUS GROUP.

If you are interesting in learning more about psychographics, visit Strategic Business Insights.

SBI is a well-known research company that has developed an assessment called VALS as a method to categorize consumers. You may want to take the assessment to expand your thinking about psychographic segmentation.