Know Your Target Market

I realize the above title is un-inspiring because it is considered common sense in the marketing world. What I really want to talk about is psychographic portraits of your target market.

First you are probably asking what the heck is “psychographic?” I certainly was when I learned this word yesterday. The dictionary defines psychographic as, “a graphic representation or chart of the personality traits of an individual or group.” So what exactly is that?

It is when you take a group of people with similar interests and you extrapolate what else most of them are interested in. I did this with a program called Interest Matrix.

It was fascinating. I entered the term “internet marketing” and it came back with other related interests for people who liked internet marketing.  I probably would have guessed they were interested in these terms: social media, seo, office space, networking, blogging, business, and web design. What I wouldn’t have guessed is that they are also interested in things such as: hiking, travel, fitness, meditation, “think and grow rich,” and “rich dad poor dad.”

It was kind of like talking with a fortune teller at the fair because I am interested in internet marketing as well as the other interests. So what exactly does this mean to you as a digital marketer? It helps in understanding your market better. For example, if you are planning a campaign to reach people interested in organic gardening, it would be helpful to learn that many of these individuals are also interested in yoga, cats, and knitting.

Try searching about a word you’re interested in at Interest Matrix and see what happens. It’s free and it may help you understand who your customers are better than you currently do.

P.S. If you try it, please give me a comment on what you found. I find this stuff fascinating.