What Is Your Small Business Psychographic Profile

Psychographics attempts to profile a target audience based on attitudes, impressions, goals and lifestyles. Unlike demographic profiling, which classifies a target audience based on tangible attributes such as age, geographic location, gender, ethnicity and income, psychographic profiling aims to delve into a prospect’s psyche, to figure out the exact trigger that will cause a prospect to become a customer. A good marketing strategy starts with demographics, and then employs psychographics to further segment and target the market.

Psychographic analysis attempts to create groups of targets with common attributes to assist with generating marketing strategies. This approach acknowledges that all customers are not the same, and that different messages are needed to reach different market segments.

Psychographic profiles for consumers in the U.S. include the Belonger, the Achiever, the Wannabe, the Socially Conscious, the Balanced/Integrated, and the Needs Driven. Read Psychographics Marketing on the Hub Pages website for a great introduction to psychographics along with descriptions of these profiles and tips for marketing to each one of them.

There are also common psychographic profiles for small businesses. A common marketing mistake is to lump all small businesses into a single category. Understanding which profile a small business falls into can help you hone your marketing message appropriately. The three small business profiles are:

• Mountain Climbers (2% of U.S. small business owners.) who are entrepreneurs motivated by growth and achievement.
• Freedom Fighters (24% of U.S. small business owners) who want to escape from corporate life, and start their own businesses to do it.
• Craftspeople (74 % of U.S. small business owners) who have a trade they love and are forced into being business owners in order to make a living from the trade.

Which one are you? How should you effectively market to each profile? How can you be more aware of the marketing tactics being used on you?

John Warrillow’s book “Drilling for Gold: How corporations can successfully market to small business” provides a detailed analysis of each profile, and suggestions for effective marketing to them. You can read a substantial excerpt on Google Books (start at page 39).