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Psychographic segmentation is the qualitative study of customers based on psychological traits such as opinions, motivations, lifestyles, beliefs, values, personality, social status and many others, and using these as basis to form sub-groups based on similarities and differences. While other basis of segmentation looks at facts and information, psychographic segmentation delves deeper to understand how the consumer mind works, and uses this understanding to meet needs and wants.
Lifestyle, in simple terms, is the way a person lives. The things people are associated with and how they spend their time is all a part of someone’s lifestyle.
Example: If an audiobook company finds out that a certain segment of the target audience like to listen to podcasts during meals, they can release small 20 minute podcasts or excerpts from their well-known book to specifically attract such audience.
Personality represents what the person is like and what traits does he exhibit. These can be grouped into 5 main types:
Example: A person who’s personality ranks high on the openness criterion (i.e. are very open) can be effectively used by research companies to conduct surveys and interviews to gather meaningful data without being evasive or uncomfortable in disclosing any information.
Interest comprise of hobbies, passions and social activities that engage a person.
Example: Fitness apps can use their user’s music interest to provide in-app music customization for their audience to listen to while exercising. This will provide the app with a competitive advantage and increase app downloads.
Values govern an individual’s understanding of what is correct and what is wrong.
Example: Parents who strictly believe in limited screen time to prevent overuse and overseeing the social media activity of their children up to a certain age will preferably buy devices that allow increased parental control settings.
Opinions reflect the point of views that are held by people. These point of views could be about general or particular issues and can help brands in understanding target audience
For example : brands like AMUL use current issues as a way of marketing and advertising their product to appeal to the audiences who are aware and hold strong opinions regarding these issues
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Motivators
What motivates your customers to buy your product? These motivators help in finding out the problem that your product fixes for your customers and underline the reason why customers seek a product with your specific features. This also highlights the difference between the motivators of your brand customers versus the competitor’s brand customers.
For example: A coffee brand’s customers can have multiple motivators such as caffeine addiction, low priced packages or high quality. As against this, the coffee brands can study the motivators of other coffee brand’s customers as well as motivators of tea customers.
Expectations
What is the customer looking to have after they buy the product? Every product and service satisfies multiple purposes for different people.
For example: An adult office goer might buy a smart watch with the expectation that they’ll be able to look after their health better and track progress. On the other hand, a teenager might buy the same smart watch with the expectation that he or she will be able to impress their friends with it.
Potential problems
What are the problems that the customer is hoping to have after buying this product? The list of perceived problems branches from the research that the customer might have conducted before buying your product. FAQ’s and product feedback websites highlight problems that other customers have faced ,which leads the customer into believing that they might face the same issues .
Key influence
Apart from motivators and expectations, what other influences does the customer have? As a marketer, it is important to study every area of the customer journey, and what lead them to it. Ask questions like:
Example : Brands can collect information by conducting customer surveys regarding which other brand do they buy from , any feature that they consider must be included in the product and what effect does the company’s marketing and advertising have on their decision making process .
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Surveys: Surveys can help the researcher gather a plethora of information about the customers and their mindset. Telephonic surveys can even help gather insights by using a person’s tone and recording the survey for future reference. It’s imperative that the survey is designed in a manner that helps in gathering unbiased data by following certain tips:
Genuine responses from the respondents help generate accurate psychographic profiles that can be effectively used by companies to target customer segments and understand their individual needs and wants.
Interviews: This is an interpersonal method of gathering customer information. The interviewer has the added advantage of engaging into conversations, reading body language and expressions and understanding the tone of the respondent. Interviewer can ask the respondent to elaborate on any point that they feel is central to the study. The interview length is also not limited as in the case of scripted surveys. The interviewer can get to know the motivators, expectations, perceived problems and key influences.
Group discussions: Focus groups and group discussions initiate a multichannel conversation between a number of customers who discuss about their habits as well as their opinions on what the brand offers, its pros and cons. The advantage of involving multiple customers, is that as a company, you get to the know the different angles through which the customers view your brand. This is how the company gets to understand its customers and how they need to alter their marketing and messaging according to the different viewpoints. It is, however, difficult to understand individual opinions and attitude, the group dynamic makes it easy to incorporate multiple psychographic profiles by gathering different people at one place and engaging them in a discussion. It is very important that the group does not get swayed by other’s opinions and be absolutely candid about their options and choices. Acquiescence sometimes results in changing opinions among people engaged in discussions, to be more agreeable. This can hinder the formation of accurate psychographic profiles and so the moderator of the discussion needs to make sure this does not happen.
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