QUIZ: Who’s A Famous Nerd Who Can Empathize?

“Wow daddy, everywhere here has free Wi-Fi.”

My two girls – 14 and 17 - are with me in Japan. We are wandering around inside the sultry envelope of a damp Tokyo summer. Of course, two teenage girls are way more interested in free WiFi than temples and boring stuff like that. Unless there’s a photo op…

“Hey dad, take my photo walking down these stairs.”

Why? I wonder.

“I want to post it to Instagram.”

Instagram. Right. Still trying to figure that out.

Grace is relatively popular on Instagram, getting between 150-200 Likes for every photo she posts. It’s a bit of obsession for her. She was the one who informed me:

“Facebook is for oldies dad. Kids do Instagram.”

I happily pointed out – to score a new point in the never-ending battle of wits between teenagers and oldies –that Facebook OWNED Instagram. Clever Mark. He saw it coming before Grace did.

Mark Zuckerberg is an unsung genius. He’s Jobs with a heart. He’s a nerd who can empathize.

Facebook is fast becoming a utility, not a service. It is being integrated into the lives of humans in ways that are still rewriting the book on modern methods of human communication. And this matters. It matters because what once cost millions to achieve can now be done for a few pennies.

Facebook is good news for Alexander's discovery – finally, effective communication is possible!

To understand that, you need to understand psychographics. Which is part of a marketing triad. It starts a long, long time ago with geographics. Basically– who lives nearby? For example, by situating our BodyChance studios in Meguro and Shinjuku, we placed ourselves within one hour’s travelling time of 30 million people.

Step 4 in the ATSuccess 12 Point plan is all about this – being in the right place.

However, 30 million is a lot of people. Who – out of all those people – are best suited to our Alexander service? For that, we turn to demographics. We have learnt that woman like Alexander's discovery in greater numbers than men. We discovered that single people have more time and interest than married people. We know that most of our students have finished university, have started their careers, or are ending their careers.

This is part of Step 3 in the ATSuccess plan – creating an attractive service for specific people.

However, even these groups – woman, single, 30s to 50s – encompasses a huge number. And it’s by no mean exclusive: we do have some university students (at Music college, eager to get an edge), some married (housewives bored as the kids flown the nest) and men (disillusioned with company life).

How do we locate these people? Welcome to the world of psychographics.

The FBI made this famous by using it to understand the motivations of a serial killer. This allows them to predict his behaviour to catch the evil predator. Police simplified this into racial profiling and it eventually became illegal in USA, because of the way it was being used.

Marketers call this same process making a psychographic profile of your customers. Asking questions like: what keeps them awake at night? What is their biggest challenge right now? There’s a famous story in marketing folklore about Target - the company who knew his daughter was pregnant before the father did!

AND it is possible to profile ethically. It is how you use the data, not the data itself.

This is part of Step 2 in the ATSuccess Plan - deciding upon your niche and/or avatar(s). The uncomfortable feeling that arises from profiling is around the objectification of people that occurs. People lose individuality and are rendered into stereo-types. However, we do this all the time. It’s a biologically engineered human behaviour to save time and keep us safe. Assessing danger involves being able to categorize people quickly. I remember a moment in Japan when someone turned to me and said:

“Oh, that’s typical for that kind of Japanese.” And I thought: what kind of Japanese?

I realized I had no psycho-physical history when it came to Japanese personalities. I didn’t interact with all these “different kinds of Japanese” at school growing up, or at my workplce, or in social situations. Therefore, I had no ability to categorize. To profile. I was a slow-footed elephant lumbering through a delicate house of china.

Here’s a joke that illustrates how we all use psychographical profiles to identify people.

***

What’s the definition of heaven?
The cook is French, the policeman is British, the mechanic is German, the lover is Italian and it is all organised by the Swiss.

What’s the definition of hell?
The cook is British, the policeman is German, the mechanic is French, the lover is Swiss and it is all organised by the Italians.

***

This is a psychographical joke. You laughed? You're a profiler. We are all profilers.

However, the ability to find people based upon a psychographical profile was once a million dollar activity for companies like Nike, Apple, Walmart, McDonald’s and Toyota. It wasn’t possible for the individual to use this method – too expensive. Not any more…

Now you can find students based on a psychographical profile you build.

Because of Facebook. Because of Mark. It’s simple. Look at who you teach now? Make three columns, and the top of each you write:

1. Geographic
2. Demographic
3. Psychographic

Now fill in the relevant data and you have begun a useful exercise in opening up your awareness towards a true audience.

Rather than wait till they find you, doesn’t it make sense to go find them?

How do you find your audience? Use your data to build an audience for a Facebook ad. If this all seems overwhelming or far-fetched – welcome to the world of ATSuccess. We make it accessible for you. At ATSuccess we believe in showing you how to utilize leading edge technology to attract students to your service. We do so because AT teachers are more challenged than most marketers – you are selling something (Alexander's discovery) that people don’t know about, don’t want (they think) and can’t understand (is what they often say).

People don’t buy when they are confused.

The solution is to find the right people and offer the right service. You do that by creating a profile of your ideal student. At ATSuccess we call that your avatar.

Do you know yours?

Sign up below to be invited to free webinar. And guess what finally happened this year?

Grace got a Facebook profile. She succumbed.

Not because she wanted to, because she couldn’t do without it any more.

Neither can you. (If you’re serious about attracting students)

It’s time.

***

Next month ATSuccess will offer a free seminar on how to use Facebook. Sign up below to ensure your own personal invitation…