Why Demographic Targeting Doesn't Tell You if Your Message Will Land

Overview

Think about yourself. Your age. Your salary. Where you live. Hold yourself within your mind. Now, think about someone else you know, a friend that matches those characteristics. Can you honestly say they’d react to advertising copy in the same way as you? Invariably they wouldn’t. While a good starting for identifying and segmenting your market, demographics are not an accurate predictor of the efficacy of your messaging. A 35 y.o. male from Poughkeepsie could love your new social copy just as easily as his 35 y.o. male coworker could despise it. The solution to this problem lies in psychometric data. Map the minds of your already segmented customers, and you can start to steer what drives them.

Takeaways

• Demographic targeting can be useful, but it’s directional and skin-deep. Layer in psychometric data to truly understand what moves your customers.
• The HEXACO framework is remarkably sticky. Query your customers once for nuanced psychological profiles that last decades.
• Soulmates.ai allows you to talk to your data, putting the HEXACO profiles of your audience to action at an average of 93% fidelity.

Why Demographics Aren’t The Final Say

Demographics can be useful. They’re simple ways to segment your audience. They line up cleanly on reports. They’re easily understandable.

But should you really rely on them as the end all be all to inform your messaging?

Since the 60’s demographic segmentation has been doubted as an accurate way to predict future purchases, being descriptive of your customers rather than truly understanding their purchase reasoning. And recent studies have explored demographic targeting in the digital age and found that online demographic targeting might not be as accurate as touted by vendors.

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t utilize demographic segmentation. Say we develop a soap and market it towards the historically-viewed-as-unhygienic male 18-30 demographic, we can tailor our messaging to that segment and theoretically attract a more loyal, more direct audience than a generic, broadly appealing soap. Our messaging could be something like, “Prove the naysayers wrong. Real men use real soap.”

But, while this messaging is ostensibly something that the target demographic should enjoy- it might not truly resonate with them. Our customers might reject this copy- thousands of dollars lost because of this one misstep. The question is, why? And psychographics provide that answer.

The Addition of Psychometrics

Since Aaker’s brand personality scale, we’ve understood that psychometric behavior influences spending patterns. People like brands that match their psychometric profile. This understanding has been furthered in recent years by prominent researchers such as Sandra Matz who has found that people spend more, and enjoy purchases more, when those purchases match them psychologically.

The impact of psychology on purchase intent and impact is undeniable.

This impact is only increased by the digital nature of today’s consumer. Psychometric profiling can predict what content a person interacts with on social media, and how they interact with it. Introverts, for example, tend to engage passively online, and matching messaging of introverted audiences to this behavior results in increased ad efficacy.

A bold 70 year old female will engage with your ad copy promising “The adventure of a lifetime” because she is intrepid- not because she’s a 70 year old female. But this isn’t to say demographics don’t have a place.

Psychographic profiling allows us to understand the why behind purchase decisions and messaging- allowing you to understand your audience beyond the who that demographic mapping provides.

Layering Psychographics Onto Demographics: An Example

Let’s return to the messaging for our soap brand for 18-30 year old men as an example of how to layer psychographics into demographics.

“Prove the naysayers wrong. Real men use real soap."

That’s some pretty incendiary copy.

Say the purpose of this messaging was to delight our already captive soap audience, but our psychometric profiling reveals that our audience ranks highly in the dimension of Honesty-Humility and low in the dimension of eXtraversion. This copy may ostensibly align with our demographic, but it doesn’t align with their psychometric data- it’s pretty bragadocious and out there.

Maybe we could soften things up and layer in the insights from our psychometric profiling that still aligns with our target demographic. “Smells so good you might want to start cursing more.” We could include some graphics around the “wash your mouth with soap” for cursing idea, but maybe itstead of the parents or grandparents that would have performed that action in one's youth, it's your boss. We could make a whole campaign with different adult authority figures washing your mouth out with soap, with professors, bosses, police officers, etc. (side note: this is a good pitch- maybe I should start a soap brand). The reason this copy aligns with our audience is because they’re highly honest, humble, and introverted- the reasonable leap we’re making is that people with that backing aren’t big into swearing.

I’m spitballing with the soap idea, but the point is, adding HEXACO data into your already existing demographic segmentation practice is a great way to ensure that your messaging is really aligned with what your audience is looking for. You may be targeting 18-30 year old men- but to ensure your messaging really lands, make sure you’re targeting the right psychometric background within that demographic.

Psychometrics in Practice

All of this theoretical talk is well and good, but how do you actually index by psychometric profile? Demographics, as we’ve postulated, are partially so effective precisely because they’re so easy to understand. A person’s age, address, income, etc. are all easily accessible information. But how can you understand someone’s psychology? How can you effectively map a full and usable psychometric profile of your audience? Beyond the superficial Meyers-Briggs classification from the five minute test everyone takes in high school, this isn’t even something people know about themselves.

This is where Soulmates.ai comes in. We hand recruit real humans from your ICP, curating a cohort of Brand Soulmates for you. These brand Soulmates are digital twins modeled on a 1:1 basis and anchored in real HEXACO data.

HEXACO is a psychometric model derived from studies of language that maps a person’s personality in six major dimensions: Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness. Not only is HEXACO more complex than the industry standard Big Five model, studies have shown that it's remarkably stable. Your HEXACO scores, year on year, tend to remain constant post adolescence.

This means that while your hair might abandon you in your fifties, your HEXACO scores won’t.

Beyond simply collecting and reporting these scores, Soulmates.ai allows you to take actionable insights on this data by simulating your audience at an average 93% fidelity. You can test your messaging before it goes live, at the touch of the button, with your real audience, without having to commission new research.

So what are you waiting for? Let’s sell some soap. Book a demo today.

FAQ

Are there any useful psychometric frameworks in marketing besides HEXACO?

The short answer is yes. The long answer is most psychometric tests aren’t worth their salt. The notable outliers to this are the Big Five model and HEXACO. Of these, HEXACO is the more robust, adding the dimension of Honesty-Humility onto the Big Five model.

How does Soulmates.ai recruit my customers?

Soulmates.ai recruits customers online via an initial short screener survey to qualify applicants. From there, participants are hand selected based on what your project requires.

Does Soulmates.ai just gather Psychometric data?

No! Our intensive survey process covers questions far beyond just HEXACO framework. HEXACO questions are standard for all of our surveys, but beyond that we work with you to cover the topics you need the most depth in.