When I first started to learn about marketing, I was introduced to ‘demographics’.

Demographics is the study of people’s age, location, size of their family, income, ethnic background, etc.

In other words, it’s a very basic attempt at grouping people so that you can determine how and where to market to them.

I don’t think it’s really that effective.

GASP! You Think Demographics Don’t Work? BLASPHEMY!

Well, sure… demographics are a pretty good blunt instrument for mass media marketing. If you own a martial arts studio (like me), you put your print ad in a newsletter that goes to high-income 25-49 year old women, rather than the sports page of the local paper.

THAT much I get.. more of the right kinds of eyeballs will be looking at the first and not the second when it comes to teaching junior how to solve his bullying program. Dad’s on the sports page… I’d rather have my martial arts studio right next to healthy recipes. Here’s why: Mommy usually makes the decisions about activities. She’s more likely to be concerned about little Johnny’s grades, or confidence, or fitness level… all which my classes improve.

Plus, she usually drives the kid to class. So your better bet is on the ladies’ mag.

However, demographics are a little too one-size-fits-all as far as I’m concerned.

Remember the Shotgun/Laser principle from the first post in this series? Demographics are kind of the Shotgun approach… shoot in the general direction of what you want to hit and you’re bound to snag SOMEthing.

But to focus in your LASER and be deadly accurate with your marketing message… you’ll need something much more focused than demographics.

You’ll need…

PSYCHO-Graphics.

Muahahahahahahahaa…

The new mecca for marketers is no longer in dividing up people by their age, income, location, race, et cetera.

It’s where it always should have been… in discovering shared interests.

A Marketing Epic Fail

Before I give you an example of how Psychographics saved my skin when a big competitor… a much bigger “FISH” came to my little bitty pondand threatened to destroy my window cleaning company…

… let me give you a glaring example of what NOT to do as a marketer.

So you know I’m a healthy guy, right?  I mean, if I’m drinking milk it’s not gonna be from some GMO, antibiotic, rBGH cow…

…it’ll be ‘organic’, non-homogenized milk from a grass-fed, happy cow.

So I get to the bottom of my bottle of  healthy, I-love-the-Earth milk… go to chuck it in the recycle bin and THEN notice!

(dun-dun-dunnnn)

It’s NOT A RECYCLABLE CONTAINER.

Wha..?

Here’s the disconnect, in case it isn’t super obvious: folks that are likely to be concerned with the effects of factory farming, and that go out of their way to buy stuff that’s produced without the influence of Monsanto or Dupont…

… are probably ALSO likely to be concerned with making their carbon footprint as small as possible.

Now, I’m not necessarily over the top ‘religious’ about not impacting the environment. But, GAWRSH!

I’m sure you can see the marketing faux pas here.

It’s about a lack of attention to psycho-graphics.. the study of what really distinguishes one group of people from another, at least in terms of how to market to them:

Their values.

An Epic Marketing WIN

So here’s my Shotgun/Laser Principle at work again, only this time instead of using to find where my ideal customer was geographically, I used it to find the ideal customer psychographically for one of my small businesses… in stealthy “guerilla” marketing mode.

In the early 2000’s I got a divorce and had to break up the ownership of my martial arts studio, plus give up huge chunks of assets.

I needed to add a serious boost to my income, PRONTO… and was able to do so by starting a window cleaning business with less than a $100 investment.

As you might have seen in my previous post on Effective Marketing on a Shoestring Budget (Part ONE), by focusing my marketing efforts in one small, carefully chosen community, I became the big fish in a little pond.

Fish Window Cleaning, with 250 franchises. YIKES.

That is, until a bigger Fish came in.

Ouch.

Now, this is going to start out sounding like I don’t like Fish Window Cleaning. Au contraire, mon frere… the local Fish franchisee and I are friends. In fact, he refers a BOATLOAD of business to me now.

But in 2002, they presented me with a bit of a problem.

See, I had been using a teeny tiny business-card-sized ad that said,

CRYSTAL CLEAR WINDOW WASHING
No job too big or too small
FREE ON-SITE “EXACTLY’S”… NOT “ESTIMATES”
Call Kurt 719-360-9559

So in 2003 I had a pretty thriving window cleaning company in Monument, CO. Lotsa repeat customers, piles of referrals…

…but you need to have new business coming in all the time. And phone calls from my business card ad mysteriously dried up.

This is how I found out that a “bigger Fish” had come to town: I grabbed a local paper to look and see if my ad was indeed still running. There, opposite my dinky ad was a FULL PAGE AD with all the selling points I’d normally use when a customer calls, all listed out.

My edge was GONE.

But then I remembered the old Shotgun/Laser principle.

I HAD found out a community… Monument, CO… that was a rich source of my kind of customer;

The magical intersection of Likes Pretty Windows/Has Money to Pay For ‘Em/Doesn’t Have Time (or inclination) to DIY… was abundant in the geographical location of Monument.

But now the Monument community had a bigger Fish dominating the market with big-dollar advertising.

I couldn’t compete with them by taking out a series of equally huge full-page ads.

I was operating on a Shoestring Budget, after all 😉

So I did a “leedle twist” on my leedle bitty business-card-sized ad instead.

It read:

SCREEN REPAIR
Window Screens and Patio Doors
We Come To YOU!
Call Kurt 719-360-9559

Ya might notice that that no longer was exactly a window cleaning ad.

That’s right.

Because WHY would I place a teeny tiny window cleaning ad in the very paper that was now being DOMINATED by a bigger player?

My itty bitty in-line biz card ad was all but INVISIBLE next to the crisp, clean, no caffeine, full page, trusty logo, bullet-points-long-as-a-well-rope national franchise Fish window cleaning ad.

But, funny thing.

Folks that like pretty windows, have the money to pay for ’em, and not the time (or inclination) to do it themselves also seem to like the screens on their windows and doors to be pretty. And have the money to pay for ’em. And don’t have the time (or inclination) to fix ’em themselves.

My ad was not simply based on DEMO-graphics any more.

It was going out to a proven demographic, yes… the paper that had been generating calls.

But it appealed to a certain PSYCHO-graphic.

SO after after arriving on-site and making torn screens go away… shooting the breeze with my customer for a bit… she would ask who to write the check out to?

“Crystal Clear Window Washing.”

And she would notice the Crystal Clear logo on my shirt, on my business card.

“Oh, this screen repair thing is sort of a side business to my actual ‘day job’… I own a window cleaning company.”

“OH! We’ve been LOOKING for a good window cleaner. Would like to give us a bid while you’re here?”

(pause now for EVIL Laugh: Muahahahahahahahahahaha!)

“Why, yes. I could do that.”

Take THAT, Fish. Because while Fish Window Cleaning would give bids for free… I would give bids AFTER getting paid by a customer. (Ahem!) …a customer that NOW knows, likes, and trusts me. Because I have already done work for her and it was awesome.

Sometimes I would get there late… that is, Fish had already  been there. Dang.

But, guess what? I got paid anyway… and their contact info went in my post card follow up system. Sooner or later I would have them as another kind of customer.

Can’t tell you how many customers I’ve won… CHEAPLY… by using “stealth” advertising to appeal to a certain psychographic instead of the blunt instrument of demographics.

How ’bout YOU, dear reader? Have you ever won the readership, the loyalty, the contact info of an online or offline customer by way of a related subject? Something that appeals to your kind of customer but that has a lower barrier of entry than directly competing for their attention?

DO tell!

I’d love to hear your cross-marketing stories, for both on- and offline businesses.

Put ’em in the comments pretty please.

And til next time,

Keep Stepping!

Kurt