The Search for Meaning: The Idealist Customer
Some people, maybe even some of your customers, search for meaning as they make buying choices. In contrast, most company presidents don’t search for meaning when making decisions, since statistically they are more likely to be Thinkers-Judgers than Intuitive-Feelers. Thinkers-Judgers are Traditionalists. Serious. No-nonsense. Practical. Intense. Focused. On task. Intuitive-Feelers are Idealists. They want to make a personal connection. Be helpful. Collaborate. Are easy to talk with. And speak with passion.
If the company president is a Traditionalist, he makes decisions based on data, not on feelings and meaning. Feelings are not part of his (or her) leading strength. The problem is that most people believe that others think like they do, in this case people making decisions based on data and logic. Known behavioral preferences based on psychological type are not considered hard data.
I believe that is why most companies don’t know the psychological type of their customers. The president doesn’t consider it data. Yet type is a greater predictor of behavior than other factors like age, income and gender. And knowing type makes marketing decisions much easier since you have a detailed roadmap of behavior to follow.
Ignoring psychological type works if you are selling to a market that is the same psychological type as the president, vice president of marketing, product manager, etc. But what if it is not? Worse, what if you have no idea what psychological types you are marketing to?
That is not the case at Hallmark. That’s why I would like to commend the Hall family and the marketers at Hallmark who understand that their customer type is an Intuitive-Feeler Idealist who searches for meaning – a very different type than those who are good at running large companies. Their Christmas commercial this year is spot on. See for yourself.
Questions to answer: What is the psychological type of your largest customer segment? Is your marketing weighted to influence them? Is this part of the data in your CRM system?
