This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, what's up everyone? Chris Guillebeau here, coming to you on the 8th of June, episode 1255, it is the 8th of June in real time. If you're listening later, of course, it's some other date. I try to keep most of what we do here timeless, evergreen. You can listen at some point in the future and you'll still learn something.
And so far this year, every Monday, I've been doing an episode called Classroom, where I dive into a specific topic, a little bit different than the question and answer series, a little bit different than the stories or case studies that we do. So today I wanna talk about who are your people, understanding psychographics, because your target market, or as I like to think of it, your ideal customer, that person, the group that person represents, they're more than just millennials. They are more than just women age 34 to 39, living in the Midwest, or active seniors, or whatever traditional demographic group you might think of. Identifying the values and beliefs of your ideal customer can be much more powerful and effective, especially if you're selling something that relies on a personal connection, or at least benefits from a personal connection, let's say. So you're probably familiar with traditional demographics, such as age, location, sex or gender, race, ethnicity, income, et cetera.
What I just mentioned about that market of 34 to 39-year-old women, that's one target market based on traditional demographics. Of course, you could get even more specific and say, okay, I want 34 to 39-year-old women with college degrees who are interested in art and live in the Atlanta area, just for example. And so if you're catering to a clear demographic, like if your business actually caters to a demographic like that, then this is pretty simple. If you've got a local business like an ice cream truck, you wanna position your truck near a school, or at least in a residential neighborhood with a lot of families, okay? But many businesses aren't like that, especially again, if it relies on some kind of personal connection.
Or in particular, if you're trying to at all build a brand around yourself, your message, if you're trying to build up followers on social media, have people subscribe, listen to your podcast, anything like that. I believe you should think a lot more about psychographics, or you could also call them the new demographics. I remember when I wrote "Hundred Dollar Startup" a long time ago, I called it the new demographics. And these days, it's easy for anyone to market to people based on these shared interests, passions, skills, beliefs, values, things you were actually opposed to or against, I'll talk more about that at the end. But all those different things, psychographics, new demographics, let us look in this episode at three examples and a few lessons that we can take from them.
First example comes from a few weeks ago on the podcast, I guess maybe about a month ago, actually. Episode 1219, Tasmanian insurance manager sells reusable cutlery holders. And for my fellow Americans, cutlery is what we usually call silverware. And the title of that episode basically tells you what it's about. This woman who creates these holders for cutlery slash silverware that you can use to take with you on the go or to a picnic or to the food carts or whatever it is.
So it's a very practical product, but it's very much sold around values and beliefs. I mean, it's very much like this is an eco-friendly thing. And it might be a little bit more difficult to live this way or to perform this small action, but by performing this small action, you're going to be making at least a small difference and you'll probably feel better about yourself. And if you buy these cutlery holders, then it will make it a little bit easier. So basically it will make it a little bit easier to do something good for the planet, for the environment, or just your own peace of mind in terms of your own contribution toward that.
I think that's an important point because it's easy to be cynical about some of this stuff and say, oh, well, if one person uses a plastic fork or chooses not to, what difference does that make? 'Cause they've already manufactured 10 billion plastic forks or whatever. But again, I think it's the consciousness of like, what am I contributing to? And so a lot of people do find value in saying like, I'm opting out of that or I'm choosing through this one small decision to not participate in that system, essentially. So that was episode 1219.
If you wanna check it out more, very much about psychographics, episode 740. So we're gonna go way back here. Trip to Europe inspires adventurous blanket bits. This is from a woman named Hollis Smith Hughes. She built a business selling textiles, these blankets in particular, with this theme of travel.
And it's very much a theme of like, if you look at her website, copywriting and messaging, and even the images she uses, it's all around this theme of adventure and this theme of, hey, if you buy this blanket and put it on your couch, you're gonna be reminded of that time you went to Turkey. Or maybe you haven't been to Turkey, but you're gonna think about what would it be like? Or maybe it's not Turkey, it's some other place, but the whole concept is adventure. Shared adventurers, by making this purchase, I am going to become an adventurer. So I am choosing to opt into that group, that community, and I have a sense of belonging in doing so.
And the third example I wanted to mention is somebody who's actually on the Onward Project, the podcast network that was founded by Gretchen Rubin, of which I'm proud Sadosil School was one of the first shows. Well, Melissa Urban has a podcast called Do The Thing. She's been on hiatus for a while. I'm not sure if she's back yet, but she has a series of episodes which you can certainly check out. And Melissa Urban is the co-founder of the Whole30 brand.
Now Whole30 is a brand that has achieved not quite universal awareness yet, but pretty close. Like Whole30 is just about everywhere. I'm sure you have stuff, even if you've never heard of it before, I bet you have stuff in your kitchen or your pantry that is Whole30 licensed. So she has built a tremendous business with a series of bestselling books, and again, licensing, all kinds of stuff, big community. Her demographic is really wide though.
She's not targeting a specific demographic for the most part, from what I can tell. She's got a lot of different people who connect with this message of personal improvement, getting back to basics when it comes to nutrition, diet, overall wellness, understanding what works for you, kind of stripping things down to a fundamental level, avoiding processed food, et cetera. And it's also a very memorable concept, Whole30. As soon as you hear that, you kind of like, you got it in your mind. So we haven't done a whole episode on Melissa, but as I said, Whole30, you probably heard of it.
So the other two episodes were 740 and 1219. I'm gonna take a quick sponsor break. When we come back, I'm gonna tell you a couple of things that you can do to actively emphasize your connection with people based on shared values and ideals. Stay tuned. [Music]
Okay, so I like to give specific actionable tips in case any of this seems a little bit high level.
It is a concept that is a little bit different than saying like, hey, go and register a domain name or something. But it's really important. It's very powerful because if you can make the right connection with people, then that emotional connection, it can extend beyond any product launch. It can extend beyond even whatever you're doing right now, even like the extension of your idea, your product, your service, et cetera. I've talked before about the power of a small army and how at least for me, my whole business community brand, et cetera, is built on relationships.
Often individual relationships, especially in the beginning, but as much as possible still now as well. So this is why it's so important. So a couple of tips. Use language that your intended audience understands. In fact, I don't even know why I said intended audience.
I should just say your ideal customer. Write that one person out there. Use language that that person understands. Like you've got this person in mind. We've talked also in some other lessons about like how do you find your ideal customer?
Who are they? So use language that they connect with, that they understand, the same language that they use, the vocabulary, any insider information or jokes or references. If you don't want to do that too much, but a little bit is good. And I think actually sometimes being indirect is better. You don't always have to say like, hey, by the way, person out there, I'm speaking to you because you want to be an adventurer.
You don't actually want to go to Turkey, but you want to buy this blanket and put it on your couch and imagine that you're going to Turkey. Like you probably don't say it quite like that, right? But just the implication of the idea sometimes can go a long way. And lastly, I think it's important to practice as much empathy as you can. And part of this is actually understanding not just what your ideal customer likes, but also what they dislike.
What bothers them, what really turns them off. Like you're building this rapport because you have solutions for their problems, right? That's the whole point. So for example, we had an episode about a woman who started a blog for other petite women looking for more fashion choices. And on her blog, she writes about how she was really frustrated because she couldn't find clothes that she liked, that fit her.
Whenever she found a dress or something that she liked, they never had her size. So this is very frustrating. And that sense of frustration is going to be understood by lots of other petite women out there. We also had, it's kind of funny, a similar episode, I should say, or similar, but different about a guy who started a blog and then it became an ebook and much more for shorter men. So very similar problem in terms of communicating the dislike, in terms of the frustration, in terms of the, wow, this is annoying.
What can we do about it? Well, guess what? I happen to have the solution because I've been there. Then that turns into relatability. I'm just like you, et cetera.
But even before you get into all that, just the psychographics, the shared values, you might think, what do petite women or shorter men have in common besides that obvious demographic characteristic? Well, I think there are several things. They might often feel excluded. They might have low expectations. Like if they go to a clothing store or something, then they almost expect not to find something that works for them.
So they come into it with a bit of cynicism. And then if you can reverse that, then, oh, okay. Wow, that's interesting. You have a solution for me. You have something that is relevant.
So your assignment for the week, do you know the psychographics of your ideal customer? Have you thought about this at all? Who are your people? I just encourage you to spend a little bit of time thinking about it. Maybe make a few notes.
Maybe just jot down a couple of things, like my ideal customer really likes this thing or they believe this thing. They have this value of all the different things that we could value or believe in. This is one of the things that is primary for them. And also, what is one thing that they don't like? One thing that annoys them, bothers them, troubles them.
Think about that a bit. Write it down. You can also read notes for this in every classroom episode this year at sidehustleschool.com/classroom. Thank you so much. We've got some great stories coming up.
I'm excited to share them with you. The best is yet to come. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to "Side Hustle School." [Music]
from the Onward Project.
