More Resources
Psychographic segmentation is the research methodology used for studying consumers and dividing them into groups using psychological characteristics including personality, lifestyle, social status, activities, interests, opinions and attitudes.
What is the difference between demographic segmentation and psychographic segmentations?
Psychographic segmentation’s emphasis on characteristics such as personality and values differs from demographic segmentation, which uses a specific trait (such as gender, age, income, etc.) to categorise potential audiences.
Market researchers use psychographic characteristics to help develop and position their products and marketing messages for different target groups.
Marketers use both demographics and psychographics in their market research to create their marketing strategy. This information adds detail to buyer personas that guide brand positioning, product development and marketing messaging.
Why is psychographic segmentation important?
Psychographic marketing enables you to engage with multiple target audiences in the ways that will make the biggest impact for each one. This approach saves time and money on approaches that might fall flat and makes it easier to relate to the groups you care about.
You can use psychographics for market segmentation to understand:
- How consumers really perceive your products and services
- What consumers really want, and why
- Gaps or pain points with your current products or services
- Opportunities for future engagement
- How to better communicate with your target audience
Understand your market in more vivid detail with SurveyMonkey’s Audience panel
Gain insights about people you’re trying to serve and how to reach them.
How to use psychographic segments for your target audience
One type of psychographic segmentation involves buyer personas. A buyer persona is a fictional profile of a potential customer that might include their title or role at work, their personal preferences, their challenges or aspects of their lifestyle.
The buyer persona represents both the facts and reasons for behaviours. Buyer personas are a first step in understanding your potential customer’s journey or the steps they take before, during and after they purchase your product.
You can also use psychographic research to develop different marketing strategies, services, experiences and even product offerings for each of your segments.
For instance, it is common to offer the same product or service with fewer features to price-conscious customers. Customers who don’t care about price but like more features can buy the same product, with more features, at a higher price.
You might find that some of your customers value convenience while others care about customer support. If you divide these into segments, you can adjust your marketing and services to cater to those motivations.
How to collect psychographic segmentation data with surveys
Surveys are a cost-effective and efficient way to collect psychographic information about your target audience. A variety of questions are used to help understand your ideal customer’s personality, lifestyle, social status, activities, interests, opinions and attitudes.
Open-ended questions use a qualitative approach. “What is your biggest challenge with…” will provide a deeper understanding of the respondent's problems.