Defining your ideal customer: Psychographic Segmentation
A Simple Guide For Marketers
Should demographic data be dead to us all?
Most marketers understand the importance of customer research… but then, when it comes to creating a complete audience profile using data, it quickly becomes an uphill battle.
And of course, their starting point is always demographic data: who your customers are, from age to sex, race, marital status, and income level.
Demographic data can be incredibly helpful but sometimes we need more.
How often do you conduct market research?
We know individuals aged 18–35 may be interested in performance biking gear, but demographic data alone cannot tell us who likes to spend their weekends training for cycling races, and who is more likely to fall off the stationary bike at the gym.
A number of women may be interested in Myn & Nain natural beauty products, but demographic data can’t help us figure out which will prefer all natural skin care products and be willing to pay more for sustainable products.
If we want to truly know our audience and adapt our marketing and messaging to suit them, we need to know more about our audience’s motivations, preferences, and beliefs.
We need to shift from who they are to how they are. I mean so what if I am a 40-year-old man from the moon? That is where psychographic segmentation comes into play.
Do not panic. It is not as nerdy or complicated as it sounds.
Stepping into your Audience’s Head. God Forbid? Well, that’s Psychographic Segmentation.
“Psychographics” refers to an individual’s psychological characteristics, personality, attitudes, values, opinions, and interests. “Let me be the one to say we should have started here, but clearly the suits thought they had better ideas.”
As is to be expected with all visceral birthmarks this type of information often comes from within. It tends to be less easily observed or tracked from afar. Psychographic data is most often collected via observation, human observation. or the nerdy version; through Surveys or interview with audience members, using a series of questions designed to surface specific views, beliefs, preferences, and more.
Psychographic segmentation is the process of separating or grouping an audience based on who they REALLY are and matching that data to what fits (i.e. I’m a reclusive 40 year old man from the moon, that’s emotional about sci-fi). Click link for big English definition.
Or maybe we should be the ones turning it down a notch. lol
Well at the most basic level, this could mean splitting a group into two categories based on a single characteristic, like whether they enjoy shopping online:
- Likes to shop online (for sunglasses)
- Does not like to shop online (also for sunglasses)
But as additional psychographics are used to segment the audience further, the number of segments can grow very quickly:
- Likes to shop online.
- a) Likes to shop online and prefers using a laptop
- b) Likes to shop online and prefers using a tablet
- c) Likes to shop online and prefers using a mobile device
Psychographic Data Points
Exactly how many psychographics are used to segment an audience — and which data points are used to create those segments — will depend on what information is available and most relevant for your specific use case.
Some of the common variables used in psychographic segmentation would include.
Social Status: referring to a person’s relationship with and standing within their community. Social status can be heavily influenced by demographic data points (like income, education level and marital status), depending on the value placed on those characteristics.
Lifestyle: This encompasses three closely related psychographic data types: Activities, Interests, and Opinions (AIOs).
- Activities would include hobbies, daily routines, and habits.
- Interests are the topics that someone is passionate about or interested in.
- Opinions (sometimes labeled “attitudes”) refer to the preferences we all have regarding people, places, products, and more.
When you can collect enough of this type of psychographic information to create a detailed portrait, it’s called a “psychographic profile.”
Here is an example of a basic psychographic profile for a customer of an ecommerce fashion retailer:
- Likes to shop online.
- Prefers using their mobile device to shop online.
- Enjoys having multiple payment options for online purchases.
- Wants to be seen as fashionable and on-trend space jackets.
- Sees clothing as a form of creative self-expression.
- Lunatic over boutique designers over mainstream brands.
- Loves styling their friends and helping them shop.
- Believes that quality and craftsmanship are more important than price.
- Prefers to support companies with sustainable practices (sorry moon miners).
Same time next week?
Part 1/2
References and further resources come in Part 2/2.
About Fish.
Fish is a brand growth strategist lead at GfORBID where he oversees Concept ideation and development of Challenger brands. He is an open-minded movie critic / food lover living in the hidden hills of Foxdale, Lusaka.
