Psychographics: Guide, How-to & Examples

When your business wants to enter into a new market or look for growth opportunities, market segmentation can help you understand the sales potential. On a larger scale, if your target customer segment moves away from one of your sales regions, you may want to consider re-focusing your sales activities in more populated areas. If your customers change, your market segmentation should as well, so you can understand clearly what your new customers need and want from you. You can use survey questions with a qualitative focus to help draw out insights in the customers’ own voice. Psychographic segmentation considers the psychological aspects of consumer behavior by dividing markets according to lifestyle, personality traits, values, opinions, and interests of consumers.

In the fastest-growing form of observation research, researchers use cash registers with scanners that read tags with bar codes to identify the item being purchased. With survey research, data is gathered from respondents—in person, through the internet, by telephone, or by mail—to obtain facts, opinions, and attitudes. Engagement cards, for instance, sell best in the Northeast, where engagement parties are popular. Marketing research is the process of planning, collecting, and analyzing data relevant to a marketing decision.

Given that 58% of people use social media globally (Datareportal), and how much information they’re happy to give out, there is an abundance of information to be had! Equipped with this information, you will have a better idea of what to focus your marketing campaigns on. With this information, they can focus on what their consumers like most (and, of course, what they are more likely to spend their money on). For example, younger buyers may tend to purchase a funky-looking, colorful milkshake concoction at a coffee shop, whilst older customer groups may be more inclined to relax over something classic. Behavioral segmentation divides markets by decision-making patterns and behaviors, such as consumption, purchase, usage, and again, lifestyle. This is because what we buy, how we use our purchases, how much we will spend on them, and where we purchase them from are often based on demographic factors.

In this article, we’ll cover the ins and outs of psychographic market segmentation and explore different ways to apply it to your marketing strategies. It's been a key to unlocking how to communicate with our target audience.” The new subreddits we targeted in psychographic marketing the "broad-communities" ad group also crushed it.” Ad viewers are more likely to purchase a product they see advertised on Reddit than other social platforms.5 Ad viewers are more likely to trust brands that advertise on Reddit.4

Market research is just one way to learn about your customers, but it can be costly and time-consuming. Therefore, if you want to use psychographic segmentation, it’s best to combine it with quantitative data to ensure you’re effectively targeting the right customers at the most appropriate times. There are several methods to collect psychographic data, but the easiest one is to use surveys to learn more about them. Psychographic segmentation can allow you to learn more about your customers, develop effective products, and create successful marketing strategies. Psychographic segmentation helps tailor campaigns and deepen customer understanding.

Activities, Interests, and Opinions (AIO)

Disposable income allows Nike’s customers to purchase more premium sports apparel and footwear. Nike’s target market has a diverse demographic, including athletes, fitness enthusiasts, sports fans, and individuals seeking casual and leisure apparel. Consumers can also access Nike’s products under the Air Force 1, Air Max, Foamposite, Air Jordan, and Converse brands. Please visit our privacy policy, cookie policy and consent tool to learn more. Top » marketing » marketing strategy » market segmentation » psychographics

Improved customer segmentation for targeted campaigns

• Here the focus is on what consumers want to achieve.
• Includes a step-by-step process for recruiting, interviewing, clustering, and maintaining personas.
• This form of market segmentation is the most common because demographic information is easy to obtain.
• As full-time workers, we might infer that they’re likely to seek out activities that help them unwind and disconnect from work—like yoga, meditation, or outdoor pursuits.

By understanding your market segments, you can leverage this targeting in product, sales, and marketing strategies. Models trained on incomplete or skewed data may reinforce stereotypes or produce unfair targeting outcomes, particularly across demographic lines. While psychographic segmentation offers the potential for more personalized and relevant messaging, it also raises ethical concerns. Its methodology has been featured in industry podcasts focused on marketing, branding, and sales strategy. Within the broad segment of Leisure Travelers, for example, travel brands can use psychographic segmentation to drill down to identify individuals as 'novelty-seeking' versus 'familiarity-seeking' consumers, and then customize campaigns based on the most relevant travel style. However, marketing to such broad categories alone fails to capture motivations and personal preferences.

They have successfully segmented their market into various groups, including the "Creative Innovators" who value cutting-edge technology and the "Simplicity Seekers" who prioritize user-friendly interfaces. Use this data to refine your approaches and ensure you're effectively targeting your audience. Identify distinct groups, including types of people with shared psychographic characteristics.

For example, many young women wear Nike’s high-performance activewear at the gym and Nike’s trendy athleisure after workouts. Nike is the go-to sportswear brand for professional athletes and “succeeders.” This target market seeks high-quality footwear, apparel, and accessories to boost their performance. Nike taps into breakout psychographic segments to broaden its target market. The brand increased its investments in women’s products, including leggings, sports bras, and athleisure.

When you closely look at non-verbal cues, social interactions and environmental influences, you’ll discover authentic information about body language, facial expressions and social dynamics. By analysing the responses, you can identify common themes and patterns among different psychographic segments within your audience. And for busy professionals, you can focus on the space-saving and time-saving benefits of your equipment, showcasing its ability to deliver effective workouts in limited time and space. Methods like purchase behaviour analysis, sentiment analysis, cluster analysis, and factor analysis combined can help you uncover actionable patterns and group respondents based on similar traits.