It's a given that no two people are exactly alike. How each of us respond to marketing and campaign messages varies based on what we believe, and what we consider important.
If you’re looking to target the right messages to the right people, data can be an invaluable tool. When it comes to segmenting your audience, demographic information and the RFM model (recency, frequency and monetary value) can be limiting. Going further and segmenting based on people’s values, beliefs and attitudes can be the differentiator that improves your bottom line.
Thryv Data is a big advocate for using psychographic data to understand the ‘why’.
We believe it offers businesses and organisations - especially the charities and educational institutions who we are passionate about working with - the chance to add new depth to their campaigns and create messages that resonate with their audience. For psychographic data to make a difference, it’s important to get the fundamentals right when it comes to your database.
Making effective use of your database
For any business or organisation, the most basic benefit of data is providing you with a clear, accurate list of the people you want to engage with. A big part of that data is contact details; the more you have, the more people you're able to reach.
This data can help a business, organisation or charity make the most of their valuable, and sometimes limited, resources.
“With the right contact details, charities and not for profits can be confident that they’ll reach the people they intended to engage with. When they get this wrong, they’ll be wasting money on marketing initiatives that aren’t going to provide results."
“Say that a charity puts together a marketing campaign that costs $1 per mail-out. Send 10,000 of those to the wrong addresses and that’s $10,000 - a lot of money wasted, not to mention the missed opportunities for donations.”
Not only does data allow you to contact existing customers or donors, it can also help an organisation become more trustworthy. Getting the smaller details right is an important factor in building customer and donor trust, and protecting your brand.
“This is especially important in the fundraising space, where reputation is everything. A spelling mistake or wrong phone number can negatively impact how people perceive you.”
“If you get your data in order to make good use of people’s money and time, it impresses them. They want to deal with you, and it makes a difference.”
Why the ‘why’ factor is important
It’s clear that demographic data has a role to play, as does RFM segmentation, but ultimately these approaches are still limited. Especially when you consider a traditional approach to marketing.
Take two 45-year-old women who live in the same area, earn the same amount of money, and made the same donations in the last six months. With the information at hand, and available resources, most organisations would be inclined to speak to them in the same way.
“In reality, these two people could be completely different. They may think differently, be attracted to different things and have conflicting value systems."
The values and beliefs of any audience member must be considered because that's what drives their decision making - whether that's buying a car or a house, choosing a school or university or donating to a charity.
"This is where psychographics is key, it's all about the value systems. Psychographics can tell you, for example ‘this group of people are socially aware, they believe a certain percentage of their money should go to a human rights based charity’, and this is backed up by data, not assumptions."
How psychographics can take you further
Helix Personas provides psychographic data that categorises the Australian population into 54 distinct personas based on values, attitudes and behaviours. Every Australian household now has a Helix Persona code attached to it.
“The psychographic data we use is based on hundreds of thousands of surveys taken over the past 70 years, about what people think, feel and believe."
When it comes to marketing or communications, psychographics is all about getting the right message in the right place. It’s contextual so your campaigns are always relevant.
“The benefits are pretty clear. It’s incredibly satisfying seeing how psychographic data enhances our clients’ marketing efforts and return on investment. It is especially pleasing when they realise that by using the right data, they are making an even bigger difference.”