Studying consumer demographics provides knowledge about customers' age, gender, location, marital status, ethnicity, and income. Studying consumer psychographics adds on a layer of intelligence surrounding purchase behavior, personality, and lifestyle.
With so much data available, it needs to be synthesized into a strategic process to be effective and productive. Diahann Young, director of digital platforms and innovation at PulteGroup, isn’t intimidated by the overwhelming quantity of data. In fact, she’s embracing it to better understand home buyers and target them in a more effective and efficient way.
Young explains more in this short video.
“A good or bad experience can occur at any touchpoint in the customer's journey,” says Bill Rossiter, principal and CEO at Interrupt, a firm that helps clients develop a detailed JourneyPath process for the key audiences they want to influence. “Most companies go into the process thinking they only have four to six touchpoints with that customer, but come out of the process realizing they have potentially dozens of touchpoints that impact the overall experience.”
Getting in Their Heads
As Young points out in her video, data and technology are unlocking key information about customers that we haven’t been exposed to before. Rossiter explains that the real valuable information is the psychographic data that helps us get inside a customer’s head, and that ultimately leads to the reasons that substantiate their purchase.
James Chung, president at Reach Advisors, is starting to map the consumer process through every touchpoint in what he refers to as visual cartography. Social media platforms are an obvious place to tap into what a consumer finds important and how they are interacting with brands. But, Rossiter warns that you need to make it an authentic experience and not a branded push aimed at more sales.
“You need to engage in a conversation,” Rossiter says. This is even truer with recent changes at Facebook. “Brands and companies should create relevant, not self-promoting, content focused on fueling conversations between users. To do this, you must use questions in your posts, and provide content that is timely and relevant to the customer's life. Always filter through asking, 'Will customers have an opinion on this?' If yes, it's sure to drive comments.”
Rossiter also notes that Facebook just launched Facebook Pixel, which is an add-on for your website that tracks what users are doing there. It gathers information from Facebook advertising, allowing you to measure their actions on your site. Going forward, the future increasingly becomes more about creating a successful strategy around data.
This story appears as it was originally published on our sister site, www.hiveforhousing.com.