Psychographics
Even though you may have determined your demographic group, people within that group still have very different perceptions about the benefits or value of your product and will be motivated for different reasons. These differences are known as psychographics. To further target your efforts, you've got to determine not only who buys (or will buy) your product, but what makes them want to buy it. Include as much psychographic information as you can dig up, such as what their spending patterns are, whether they are brand conscious when it comes to your product type, what influences their buying behavior, what promotional efforts they respond to most often, etc. You also want to know how they go about buying it and what you can do to encourage them to buy more. You need this information so you can, in effect, clone your best customers. It is important to really pick apart what motivates them to buy.
The information you glean from a journey into your target audience's brain is often key to your marketing efforts, particularly the positioning of your product. It includes the audience's activities, interests, and opinions. You have to work through behavioral factors, economic factors, and even interpersonal factors to get to the root of purchasing behavior. Answer these questions in your overview:
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- What do they like about your product?
- What do they like about your competitor's product?
- What made them decide to buy your product?
- Did they know which brand they were buying before they purchased it?
- What advertising messages had they seen prior to buying?
- How much disposable or discretionary income is available for this type of purchase?
- What are their hobbies?
- What emotional aspects impact their purchase?
- What is their social class or status?
- Who is the actual decision-maker for this type of purchase?
- What values and attitudes play a part in this type of purchase?
- Who do they look to when making purchasing decisions?
Now that you know your target market and market segments, define your market using concrete numbers and percentages. In other words, how many users do you currently have and how many potential users exist for your product or service? If you are offering a regional service and have found that there are 80,000 potential customers in your geographic area, then this is where you put that information.
Explain the growth and other changes you see in the market and how the competition is failing, flailing or flourishing as a result. Include some market history if it applies to your product and market. Refer to the statistics and data you've discovered through your market research and be sure to quote the source and date.
This is where you would include the PEST (Political, Economic, Social, and Technology) information you gathered about outside influences on the market (i.e. government regulations, union activities, social changes, etc.). Also, don't forget the seasonality of the market, and the typical product life cycle.