Psychographic Segmentation: A Beginner’s Guide

A fitness brand, for example, might segment its audience into performance-driven athletes, wellness-focused beginners, and socially motivated group exercisers. Statista aggregates industry data, consumer trends, and market research across sectors. National surveys from organizations that study consumer behavior ask people about their lifestyle habits, media consumption, brand preferences, and attitudes on various topics.

CoreHealth Technologies is a corporate wellness software company and platform that provides services to over 1000 companies (including Fortune 500 companies like Cigna and Sun Financial), representing more than 2 million employees worldwide. To see how this works in practice, let’s look at one company using psychographic modeling to revolutionize the health services industry — an industry that, according to Deloitte, has been moving from volume to value to compensate for revenue pressures and declining margins. Service industries are also getting in on the game, devising their own five-factor models, reaching new clients, and improving their services at the same time. Product industry players like car manufacturers are not the only ones profiting from new psychographic techniques.

More than just a demographic snapshot, it’s a rich profile that can include motivations, preferences, fears and behaviors. Knowing what a customer buys offers a direct line into their preferences and priorities. When paired with psychographic data, you can understand, for instance, not just that a person is a middle-aged male, but that he values sustainability and is health-conscious.

• That’s insight you can apply directly to your messaging and targeting strategies.
• Segments should be easily measurable so that marketing strategists can decide whether, and to what extent, they should focus their efforts and resources.
• In today’s experience-driven economy, brands can’t afford to let their data sit in silos.
• Psychographic segmentation allows companies to delve deep into the psychological attributes of their customers.

This allows companies to leverage the tool to create customer profiles, featuring demographic, geographic, and psychographic data. Using its own customized psychographic model, PatientBond can provide each employee with the appropriate behavioral nudge to increase engagement with CoreHealths products and services. For CoreHealth’s business model, it is important to find ways to increase employee participation in its clients’ workplace wellness programs, screenings, and health interventions. In her annual newsletter, CoreHealth founder and CEO Anne Marie Kirby predicted that artificial intelligence, psychographics, and personalization would be key sites for innovation for companies like her own in 2018.

One study found that using psychographic information to target customers was up to four times more effective than using demographic information. By using only demographic data, all customers in a specific category (like high school graduates, Baby Boomers, New Yorkers) would be marketed to identically. Applying psychographic segmentation could expand this study and lead to a more comprehensive understanding of a caregiver’s needs. Greater personalization, such as considering participant characteristics and motivations and taking a precision prevention approach, is critical to increase adherence (Coley et al., 2019; Rosenberg et al., 2020a; Solomon et al., 2021). Integrating psychographic segmentation into dementia care could provide a more personalized care experience and increased patient engagement, leading to improved health outcomes and reduced costs (Laurance et al., 2014).

Its marketing focuses on unique experiences, like extreme sports events and music festivals, that align with its audience’s interests. The brand doesn’t just sell a drink—it sells a lifestyle filled with energy, adventure, and excitement. Red Bull’s use of platforms like Instagram and TikTok ensures that its content reaches a broad and diverse audience.

Testing serves as quality control for determining the most effective psychographic marketing strategies that reach out to prospects in an organic manner, balancing personalization but without becoming invasive. Psychographic information and analysis are particularly effective in helping marketers to prioritize publishing across multiple channels that are appropriate for reaching each target audience and influencing their buying decisions. Insightful psychographic information can be collected from studying data from sources such as posts on social media, together with direct interactions with existing or prospective clients. Instead, focus on a few key segments that you can address with tailored marketing strategies. This multi-faceted approach helps you develop more precise marketing strategies.

Demographic segmentation

In this article, we'll explore how psychographics are revolutionising marketing strategies and empowering businesses to forge meaningful connections with their target audiences. But they’re missing a vital digital channel by doing this. For instance, if your company is a music platform, psychographics might help determine that your target audience is interested in reading about live events, not just musical releases. This very blog, for instance, is here to inform readers about digital marketing, a topic that interests them.

Unlike demographic segmentation, which focuses on quantifiable aspects like age, gender, and income, psychographic segmentation seeks to understand the "why" behind a customer's choices. Read more on Consumer behavior or related topics Market research, Analytics and data science, Customer experience and Marketing industry Alexandra Samuel is a tech speaker and data journalist who creates data-driven reports and workshops for companies around the world.

In practical terms, this could mean evolving from generic campaigns to focused, impactful marketing campaigns targeting specific psychographic segments. When businesses tailor their communication and offerings based on psychographic insights, it helps current and prospective customers feel valued and understood – leading to greater trust and, consequently, loyalty. By understanding people on a personal and emotional level, companies can craft messages that resonate more powerfully. Psychographic segmentation allows companies to delve deep into the psychological attributes of their customers.

Overview of Red Bull's Brand Image and Identity

Parents who actively guide and encourage their kids’ technology use typically look for purchases that offer a balance of fun and educational value, and that offer ways to engage and play as a family. Parents who focus on minimizing screen time (“limiters”) gravitate towards software and devices that support their kids’ what are psychographics literacy, math, and academic skills. Social media monitoring is hugely valuable, too, since the organic conversations that emerge online may help you spot emerging issues or psychographic clusters.”

Psychographics in marketing describe the inner world of your customers, their values, beliefs, lifestyle preferences, and personality traits. By studying these psychological attributes, marketers gain a deeper understanding of their target audience and can craft campaigns that connect with real human desires. Give customers more of what they're looking for, such as deals and a feeling of exclusivity, at decisive moments in their buying journey.

Although Nike targets a global audience, it uses geographic segmentation for its product lines and marketing campaigns, adapting for local cultural and weather trends that impact consumer behavior. When people engage with and show ongoing interest in the brand on any platform, Nike retargets them on other channels. As part of a strategy to widen its target market, Nike often focuses on breakout psychographic segments.

A focus group brings together a carefully selected, demographically diverse set of potential clients for a guided discussion about a product or service. Surveys are a great way to hear directly from your target audience, gain confidence in the results of your interviews, and get a deeper insight into what is most or least important to buyers. Your customers’ answers will clue you into the subtle motivations that made them choose you over the competition and the barriers that prevented them from buying from your competitors. After, ask them to talk about what they did first to learn about the companies they were considering to buy from. The easiest way to collect data for market segmentation is to hear directly from your target audience.

The real estate industry

A skillful advert will make your customers feel like they’re looking into a mirror that encapsulates their deepest drives and desires. Some companies may have already conducted extensive market research in your product niche that they're willing to sell. If the latter, you may want to infer which psychographic qualities translate to your overall market base and which are unique to those you’re studying. You can create more detailed profiles as you discover new psychographic subjects to study.