Customer Experience
Psychographic Segmentation: Definition, Examples, Categories
Article written by Vishak V
Frustrated developer turned joyous writer.
15 min read
24 February 2024
Customer Experience
Article written by Vishak V
Frustrated developer turned joyous writer.
15 min read
24 February 2024
Do you wonder why brands divide their customers based on psychographic segmentation? Well, in reality, it is the opposite. People are different because of these psychographic factors. What we buy, the careers we choose, the brands we are loyal to, and even the movie stars that we look up to are determined by this.
When you decide to buy a product based on certain attributes or when you pick your college majors, even the friends you choose, all of these are examples of psychographic segmentation.
Psychographic Segmentation is a market research technique that divides a market or customer group based on psychological characteristics such as values, lifestyle, social status, activities, interests, opinions, and attitudes.
While demographic segmentation focuses on measurable factors such as age, gender, income, and education, psychographic segmentation delves into the deeper motivations and emotions behind consumer actions.
But how do you get hold of this data?
It is possible by asking the right questions. Here are a few areas you should cover:
Let’s consider the case of a high-end electronics store in a posh locality to give a psychographic example. It appeals to upper-class customers as they have the purchasing power for it, and they look for luxurious products.
To identify customers interested in buying, the jewelry store has to carry out psychographic segmentation. Variables like social status, purchasing power, and lifestyles are important factors that would identify potential customers for this store. Using these variables, you can find potential customers who would also be a part of the upper class by the above-discussed variables.
Let us look at a few more examples of psychographic segmentation:
Now, unlocking the complete power of psychographics requires data. For this, surveys emerge as a valuable tool. Plus, you need the support of an advanced data collection tool to streamline the process. If you like, I’d suggest you try SurveySparrow.
The platform lets you craft targeted conversational surveys that delve into their lifestyles, values, and interests. That’s not it! You can share the surveys via multiple platforms, and collect, visualize, and analyze the data to make informed decisions.
Now, if we take the above examples, the high-end electronic store can use SurveySparrow’s targeted surveys and filter respondents based on income levels and location.
As for the jewelry brand, they can utilize the custom question types to gather specific design preferences and gauge interest in customization options. The fashion brand can leverage NPS scoring to measure customer satisfaction and identify areas for improvement. There is something for everyone!
Why don’t you try it out today? Sign up for a 14-day free trial!
Collecting psychographic data is an important part of the process, as the quality of the data you gather should be worth the effort. Here is how you can collect psychographic data.
The fastest way to gather feedback these days, as we discussed a while back, is through online surveys. You can create them with SurveySparrow. Send the surveys to your entire email list (or via multiple sharing options) to get information about them and segment them psychographically.
Here are a few questions that you can add to your survey:
If you want to get the best results for your survey, keep it short. Ask only the most relevant questions.
Psychographic Survey Template
Use This Template
The next important way is…
One of the best ways to get meaningful data is by interviewing customers. Ask them what their goals are and how your product or service helps them achieve them. It will also help you figure out their language to describe their pain points. It will be of huge help in your marketing communications.
Segment your customers by asking the right questions. When you are capturing information about the lead, ask them psychographic questions so that you can segment them accordingly.
Millions of people, more importantly, your target market, reside on different social media sites. Find your target market or most engaged customers, and send them polls or make them comment on your posts where their responses will have psychographic elements in it. This is where a Tiktok channel can help. Share content like polls or videos on your channel. Get TikTok views to increase visibility and get content trending.
Your customer relationship management software has ample data about your customers. Find psychographic data from your CRM, there will be a lot of useful information.
With the help of a good brand tracking tool, you can understand what your customers and target audience feel about your brand. It will also tell you how they react to your marketing campaigns.
Read more:
Below are the various psychographic segmentation characteristics that have a significant influence on the buying patterns of consumers:
Businesses can divide their customers based on personality. There are different types of personalities, too; you can define them as introvert, extrovert, emotional, friendly, opinionated, funny, etc. The purchasing habits of customers are closely linked with their personalities. Businesses need to ask-” What is the personality type of my prospective customer?”
Each individual’s choices are based on how they have been raised and the values they were taught when they grew up. People can be segmented based on their thoughts and attitudes, as they also affect their purchasing behavior.
A persona from a high-income group will not pinch pennies, nor will they look for ways to get discounts on every purchase. Instead, they will splurge on activities or things that make them happy. On the other hand, the middle-income group might want to save on each purchase to save money for the future. Businesses should keep this in mind when they come up with strategies.
People from different social classes will have various choices regarding the things they want to buy. It differs from the type of cutlery in their kitchens and the places where they seek entertainment. A brand like Audi will not target someone who is in the lower rung of the middle class, while a brand like Walmart or Costco will target people of all social statuses.
Another way to differentiate customers is based on lifestyle. The lifestyle of a millionaire businessperson is completely different from that of a mill worker. As a business, you have unique challenges to solve for each of these lifestyle types. Brands should understand the AIO variables of customers. It is abbreviated as Activities, Interests, and Opinions.
What are the common activities that the customers enjoy? How much time do they invest in these activities? What kind of research do these customers do when they are looking for products to buy?
People have different interests, and when brands deeply understand this, it will help them refine their marketing activities.
Beliefs shape the way a person behaves, including their shopping habits. A vegan will not buy any animal products. So if you are a brand that sells animal products, they might not be a part of your customer base, and no matter how charming your marketing copy is, they will not budge unless they change their beliefs. That is not likely to happen. People have strong opinions about culture, religion, gender, and politics. You need to be careful about your marketing messaging on these topics.
Collecting customers’ data and analyzing them for lifestyle, attitudes, social status, beliefs, and personalities. It gives the opportunity for brands to draw insights into what motivates them to buy from a brand. It is the key to providing your customers with a relatable and exciting experience. Let us look at the advantages:
It provides deep insights that allow for relevant customization. The customization is not only of products and services but also of how you communicate with them.
You can create better products when customers’ preferences are understood and predicted. They will be closer to what your customers expect from you. It will also assist in branding and communication efforts.
Understanding why your customers do certain things is possible when you analyze their personalities, attitudes, and beliefs.
Using the same psychographic variables, you can evaluate your competitors’ target market. It will help you fine-tune your branding activities.
When your brand’s messaging aligns with their personalities and attitudes, your marketing campaigns will be more interesting.
Incorporating psychographic elements into your segmentation, you will identify more accurate trends and opportunities. It will also help with creating better products and drive new marketing tactics.
People’s behavior changes for a variety of reasons and is always unpredictable. So if you are using behavior as a foundation for your marketing segmentation, it can prove unstable. It is possible to track this drawback by tracking new behaviors and constantly refining segments. On the other hand, people’s traits remain constant over time. Whether they prefer high-end products or low-end products is not likely to change.
The benefit of using psychographics for your market segmentation is that it gives you a steady foundation to divide your customers to build a detailed strategy that can be useful for a significant period.
Using psychographic data, you can get the right offer in front of customers and craft the right messaging in your marketing campaigns. Let’s see how you can use it effectively in your marketing.
Now that you know what is most important to your customers, you can give them more reasons to buy from you based on it. Your high-end customers are not going to be lured by discounts. By gathering psychographic data, you will know that they value one-to-one support. You can offer that level of support, you can easily get the customers to make the purchasing decision.
The call to action is the most important piece of material in a container. By using the right CTA, you will be able to motivate your customers to take action. A tailored CTA is at the convergence of interests, values, beliefs, and motivations.
By knowing what emotionally appeals to your target market, your ads will be even more compelling. Using the information, your ads will make the target customer buy from you. You will be able to emotionally influence your customers and strike a chord with your customers.
In marketing, buyer personas are everything. A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your most ideal customers. When you are creating a marketing campaign, you do not expect everyone to like the content in it. It is impossible that you have the same buyer persona. If you have significant psychographic data, you will be able to update the existing details to refine your buyer personas.
Now that we know how important psychographic segmentation is let us look at how companies use them.
How does Nike use psychographic segmentation? It is one of the world’s most loved sports apparel brands. They use psychographic data in their marketing campaigns. If you have observed their ads, they are always about creating a ‘feeling’. They aim to create a community of doers and infuse a sense of community into their customers.
Using psychographic data, Apple projects luxury, class, and minimalism to its target audience. They create different marketing campaigns for various psychographic segments. The Apple brand also stands for simplicity, creating a people-driven design and removing complexity from people’s lives.
The cola drink brand targets its audience with a variety of drinks. Coca-Cola buyers are divided based on their lifestyle, personality, and values.
They target three primary groups: people who are too busy to go out for movies, movie buffs who love renting films, and people who want to get the most value for their buck.
A popular meditation app, Headspace, realized teachers were a huge part of its customer base. They believed that teachers held a lot of persuading power. So, they created a special offer for teachers, increasing their subscriber base by 25,000. The new subscribers they got were from different markets, too.
Even though psychographic segmentation helps businesses unlock pivotal information, it does come with its limitations.
When it comes to analyzing psychographic segmentation, there should be clearly defined standards. Otherwise, it can be confusing and inconsistent.
It is one of the most difficult segmentation methods to perform. Why? Because it requires participation from specific psychographic surveys.
Even though it is believed that psychographics gives you an understanding of why customers buy your products, it isn’t always found true. While it is a good indicator, it might not necessarily be true why customers buy from you.
To get meaningful psychographic segmentation, it requires both qualitative and quantitative market research methods. It can be expensive for many businesses, but it is also time-consuming.
Read More: 10 Best Market Research Tools
Understanding what your target audiences feel and how they operate is pivotal to running a successful business. Getting your marketing strategy up and running based on hunches will only lead you to failures. With the help of psychographic segmentation, you can create marketing campaigns that fit the psychographic patterns. By doing so, your campaigns will represent your customers’ ambitions, attitudes, and beliefs. But you also need to consider the costs involved and the potential inconsistencies that may come up if the research is not conducted properly.
Before you go, don’t forget to create your very own survey with SurveySparrow. It’s free to try!
A personalized walkthrough by our experts. No strings attached!
It is one of the most effective segmentation methods among the others. It uses traits such as attitudes, lifestyles, social status, opinions, and other characteristics to segment customers.
Four examples of psychographic characteristics are Personalities, Lifestyles, Interests, and Opinions.
The psychographic factors include social class, habits, behaviors, interests, and personality characteristics.
Marketers of retail products, such as phones, laptops, video games, etc., typically try to identify their target audience based on psychographic factors.
Thousands of brands trust SurveySparrow to turn feedback into growth. Try it free today!
Best Of
14 MINUTES
12 June 2021
Customer Experience
15 MINUTES
20 September 2022
Customer Experience
14 MINUTES
29 May 2020
Best Of
18 MINUTES
23 May 2022
14-day free trial • Cancel Anytime • No Credit Card Required • No Strings Attached
