5 Types of Psychographic Segmentation

Psychographic segmentation involves examining the personality traits that impact the purchasing decisions of its target customers, including goals, values, beliefs, and lifestyles. Segmenting current customers according to personality may require more detailed research than other segmentation examples. Still, its data can also lead to very effective marketing messages that directly address a customer’s needs.

For example, cruise lines may utilize psychographic segmentation to draw in an appropriate audience. Social class will inform cruise line teams of how much the target market can afford to pay. At the same time, lifestyle research will show what kinds of activities the cruise should offer. Retail companies may also use psychographic marketing to determine clothing prices, how to source materials, and how conservative, trendy, or fashion-forward the cut and silhouettes are.

Demographic and psychographic segmentation help brands build their ideal customer. However, these two types of segmentation describe the target markets differently. Demographic data details who the customer is with specific quantitative information, such as their birthday, income, and zip code. Psychographic data describes why a customer buys the way they do based on qualitative data, such as personality traits, hobbies, and social attitudes. In this form of behavioral segmentation, psychological characteristics and AIO (activities, interests, and opinions) help inform customer personas.

As a marketing strategy, psychographic segmentation is important because it identifies a target audience based on interests that may match what a product is offering. Marketing teams analyze behavioral data to form psychographic segments, which can be more useful than demographic segmentation when building a marketing strategy.

Understanding if a customer base identifies as an introvert or an extrovert, for example, can be valuable market research in better predicting consumer behavior. Marketing teams often employ focus groups to help gather psychographic information to strengthen marketing campaigns.

Marketing teams can perform market research with focus groups, surveys, and customer feedback to collect psychographic information. The following psychographic market segments are examples of how marketers can define buyer personas:

1. 1. Lifestyle: One’s lifestyle choices—often defined by hobbies, such as running, high fashion, or reading—are critical parts of psychographic data.
2. 2. Social class: Whether one is lower, middle, or upper class will offer companies a deeper understanding of a buyer persona’s psychographic profile.
3. 3. Attitudes: Cultural backgrounds shape attitudes, which is a more abstract part of these digital marketing efforts, but it may play into religion, family size, politics, etc.
4. 4. Activities, interests, and opinions: This AIO category can get granular, illuminating what kind of films the target customer enjoys watching or their preferred magazines.
5. 5. Personality: Marketers can use personality types to identify a target market, from adventurous and outgoing to homebody and laidback.

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