Online Survey Basics

A lot of times when people hear about market research, they hear about demographic studies that divide groups based on age, race, socio-economic status, etc; however, marketers depend on much more than just knowing consumers' ages or annual salaries when deciding what products or services to pitch to a particular audience. Consumers' personalities, or their psychographic makeup, play a large role in their buying habits, too.

There's no doubt in my mind that a person's personality correlates with what he buys, said Amanda Collins, chief of staff at the Grammar Doctors, in an e-mail interview. In fact, it's probably the determining factor.

Absolutely, psychographics matter, and absolutely, the type of media should influence the approach, said  Shel Horowitz, author of Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet (John Wiley & Sons, 2010). An advertiser wouldn't want to run the same spot on Fox News and Rachel Maddow.

Shennandoah Diaz, president of Brass Knuckles Media, has a somewhat reserved opinion of psychographic research. I think that in some cases, targeting people based on interests like television shows is a great tool, so long as it is truly relevant to your product or service, explained Diaz. However, I don't feel that drilling down to a specific television show is entirely relevant, unless you are marketing a related product such as another television show. Getting too specific can isolate key market segments, which could mean eliminating profitable revenue opportunities.

In her article, You Are What You Watch, Market Data Suggest, Beth Snyder Bulik discusses a study in which market researchers did use consumers' television viewing habits to help them determine what types of products those consumers were most likely to buy. Although there are some, like Diaz who disagree, many marketers wholeheartedly believe in the value and merit using psychographics as an insight into consumer spending.

Psychographic factors are every bit as important as demographic factors, if not more so. Advertisers have known this for years and have used it in crafting their messages, said Scott Allen, vice-president of marketing at OneCoach.

The idea of psychographic marketing is not only very real, but very powerful as well, said associate professor of management at Moravian College, Gary Kaskowitz, PhD. We know that people buy things based on emotion and justify with reason. Savvy marketers are well aware that psychographics are the most important of all characteristics to understand if you really want to motivate your audience to do something (i.e., buy). Therefore, they will do what they can to understand the emotional story we envision ourselves living and sell their products as props to our personal stories.

Psychographics is not an exact science, but the study, conducted by Mindset Media, revealed many similarities among consumers who regularly watched certain television shows. For example, the study found that people who regularly watch the television show "Mad Men" would prefer brands such as Blue Moon and American Express, while they would likely not be as interested in Campbell's soup or a Cadillac Escalade. 

I have seen phenomenal results from this type of marketing. Best of all, when you have a core group of customers you know, you can really validate many of the segments using this type of strategy, said Philadelphia University professor of marketing, Jason Crook.

State Farm agent, Deborah Becker, experienced the type of success describe by Crook first hand. Psychographics helped Becker determine what type of client would come into her office – based on which television programs aired her commercials – and gave her an edge over her competition by informing her to which group of people she needed to target future ad campaigns.

Whether they watch them or not, most people remain blissfully unaware that the annoying commercials interrupting their favorite television programs serve a practical purpose for market researchers. Nor do people realize what role they, as consumers, play in determining which commercials air during those programs. When looked at from a psychographic perspective, Nielsen ratings seem a lot less frivolous.