Marketing is the act of informing people about your product or service. It is education. Sales is the act of solving the potential customer’s problem, easing their pain or satisfying their desire, and exchanging money with them for your product or service. Not all people are going to need your product. Spending money on marketing to “anyone who can fog up a mirror” is insane and expensive. To connect the right people to the solution you have, you need to know exactly who those people are.
Who is in your tribe?
You may have heard of the term target marketing. I choose to use the word tribe to reflect the community of clients we intend to create instead of the word target. Using the target implies that we are aiming and shooting at a group of people. In business, doesn’t it sound much better to create a “tribe” of understanding customers than a group of leads you’re shooting at?
Three essential areas of research related to your tribe are the demographics, geography, and psychographics of your ideal client. The better you know about these three, the more you can connect with them and educate them about your product.
Demography
Demography is the science of vital and social statistics of populations, which specifically means studying births, deaths, marriages, educational level, income level, etc., of the population.
Demographics, then, is data that represents your tribe’s market gender, age, and education levels.
- How old is your ideal client?
- How much education have they had?
- How much income do they get?
- Are they parents or grandparents?
- Do they rent or do they own?
Geography
As you can see from the word itself, geographic data is data that represents the geographic picture of your tribe’s market. In other words,
- Where they live?
- What neighborhood, region, or general area are they in?
- What ZIP codes are associated with your ideal customer?
- Where do they work?
Psychography
Split this word: psycho and graphics. The psychological root is exactly the same as in the words psychology and psychoanalysis: they all have to do with the psyche or the mind. Psychography is the data that represents the “why” behind shopping. Usually when you can figure out the “why” behind buying some products, you can guess how they can buy other products, including yours. Yes, there are companies that spend billions of dollars researching spending habits. To get you thinking about the psychology of buying and how it applies to your marketing, think about these scenarios:
Examples:
A woman buys groceries at the local cooperative organic food market, drives a small crossover vehicle that has bumper stickers from different campsites, and carries a glass water bottle. What kind of newspaper do you think he reads? What kind of magazines do you think he subscribes to? What kinds of activities / causes does she support that you could sponsor? Do you think he watches television? If you wanted to encourage this woman to buy your product, where would you advertise? What kinds of words would you use to entice her to buy?
A young man in college just ran down to the store to buy beer for a party. He bought a beer on sale, drove a truck, and was wearing a T-shirt and jeans that he bought at the little thrift store downtown. If you wanted to encourage this man to come to your store / buy your product, where do you think you should be located? What should be the price range of your products for him to buy?
- What kind of people are your customers?
- What do they read?
- Where do they spend their free time?
- Do you listen to the radio? Watch television? What stations?
- What problems do they face?
- What do they want to maintain their quality of life? What is your quality of life?
Take time to think and model your ideal customer. Draw, cut out pictures and write as much information as you can about them. Name them! Call them Susan, John or Bubba. Be personal and know exactly who they are. By clearly identifying your tribe, you will be able to effectively educate them about your product and solve their problems and facilitate sales.