What are Psychographics in Marketing? How to Get Started

You've crafted your marketing campaign using the tried-and-true method of segmenting your audience by demographics. But as you launch a campaign, you sense something is lacking. Even with the best marketing tools and precision, it feels like even though you're casting a wide net, you’re not catching as many fish as you know you can.

Enter psychographics — the next step in audience segmentation.

Let’s say a fitness brand targeting women aged 25-40 has enough demographics to shape a strategy. By embracing psychographics, the company learns that its audience is driven by a desire for empowerment, seeking a community that champions self-love and authenticity. How might they cater its messaging? How much further can you take your personalisation when you understand the specific mindset of your customer?

In this article, we'll explore how psychographics are revolutionising marketing strategies and empowering businesses to forge meaningful connections with their target audiences.

What you’ll learn:

• What are psychographics?
• What is psychographic segmentation?
• What are the different types of psychographic segmentation?
• How to use psychographic segmentation?
• Psychographic segmentation vs. demographic, geographic, and behavioural models.
• How to apply psychographics in marketing?
• How do you collect psychographic data?
• How do psychographics help improve the customer experience?
• What are some of the current and future trends in psychographics?

A consumer’s daily activities and lifestyle offer a glimpse into their expected behaviour.

For instance, the fitness brand Lorna Jane targets active women who incorporate fitness into their daily lifestyle. This lets the company hone in on their marketing strategy — empowering women through exercise.

AIO focuses on the interests and activities of your target audience. What do they do every day? How do they like to spend time relaxing?

Consider how a brand like Boost Juice tailors its marketing strategy to appeal to young consumers who are interested in healthier alternatives to fast food.

Businesses can also create segments based on customer personality traits. For instance, is someone introverted or extroverted? Are they masculine or feminine? Reserved or ambitious? Relaxed or excitable?

For instance, a clothing brand like Kathmandu can use these segments to tailor product pages and marketing strategies for adventurous active wear vs casual, cozy hoodies.

Social class is a straightforward segmentation option that informs preferences, activities, and interests.

For example, Qantas markets luxurious first-class services with priority boarding, focusing on in-flight perks to appeal to upper-class travellers. On the flip side, their marketing for economy flights focuses on the holiday destination rather than the on-board customer experience.

Let’s walk through step-by-step instructions on how to create psychographic segments for your audience. Following that, we’ll talk more in-depth about applying psychographics to your marketing efforts, as well as the different methods available for data collection.

First, what are you trying to achieve? Are you looking to refine a product marketing campaign? Do you want to pinpoint a new demographic for a product launch? Define your objectives first to ensure your segmentation aligns with your strategy.

Next, you need to decide on the research method you’ll use to capture psychographic traits. Surveys and customer interviews are a solid option. Social media works well, too.

There’s also the more comprehensive option of using a marketing analytics platform to unify your data and benefit from AI insights into consumer habits. We’ll provide more information on the different research tools at your disposal later in this guide.

Whichever research tools you employ, gather data from a large, representative sample of your target audience.

Once you’ve gathered your data, analyse it to discover patterns. Methods like purchase behaviour analysis, sentiment analysis, cluster analysis, and factor analysis combined can help you uncover actionable patterns and group respondents based on similar traits.

Before you can act on your segments, you need to label them and then verify them to ensure accuracy. Compare your theories with customer data and conduct a concept test to evaluate the effectiveness of your segments in the real world.

Consumer preferences are always evolving. Iterate and refine your psychographic segments and buyer persona over time to ensure they’re accurate and relevant.

Let’s say your company specialises in providing equipment for home fitness enthusiasts. Traditional demographic data might suggest that your target audience includes individuals aged 25-45 who prioritise health and fitness. By applying psychographics, you uncover distinct segments within this demographic. For example, one segment might consist of tech-savvy fitness enthusiasts who are drawn to the latest innovations in home workout equipment, such as smart exercise machines and virtual reality fitness programmes. Another segment might comprise holistic wellness seekers who prioritise mindfulness and stress reduction in their fitness routines, gravitating towards yoga mats, meditation aids and aromatherapy accessories. Yet another might look like busy professionals who value efficiency and convenience, seeking compact and versatile equipment that fits seamlessly into their hectic lifestyles, like adjustable dumbbells or foldable exercise benches.

You wouldn’t market the same way to any of those groups, but now that you know these details, you can craft tailored marketing messages for each segment. For the tech-savvy group, you can highlight the advanced features and connectivity of your equipment, emphasising the integration with fitness apps and virtual coaching platforms. For holistic wellness seekers, you can emphasise the natural materials and ergonomic designs of your products, promoting their harmony with mind-body practices. And for busy professionals, you can focus on the space-saving and time-saving benefits of your equipment, showcasing its ability to deliver effective workouts in limited time and space.

When you address the unique values and motivations of each psychographic segment, your marketing messages connect to specific interests or passions they care deeply about in a way other marketing efforts can’t. But even as you enhance your approach and strengthen the bond between brand and customer, you still need to measure and refine as you go along.

When it comes to collecting psychographic segmentation data, it’s useful to get familiar with and use all the methods, tools and techniques available for getting the best insights into your target audience.

One of the most direct ways to gather psychographic data is through surveys and interviews. This allows you to ask targeted questions about attitudes, values, interests and lifestyles. By analysing the responses, you can identify common themes and patterns among different psychographic segments within your audience. And don’t underestimate the power of observation. When you closely look at non-verbal cues, social interactions and environmental influences, you’ll discover authentic information about body language, facial expressions and social dynamics.

Social media platforms are another way, as they provide a wealth of information about consumer interests, behaviours and preferences. By monitoring social media conversations, comments and engagement metrics, you can gain insights into the psychographic profiles of your audience. They also offer things like sentiment analysis (happy, sad, angry) on comments and aggregate it. Social media monitoring tools can help to automate this process and identify trends and sentiments relevant to your brand.

Web analytics tools can help track user behaviour on your website and digital channels. When you use them to look for patterns in user interactions, you’ll see the types of content they engage with, the products they view and the actions they take. By correlating this data with psychographic information, you can identify which psychographic segments are most active and engaged with your brand.

Once you've collected psychographic data, you can conduct a segmentation analysis to identify distinct psychographic segments within your audience. Similarities and differences in attitudes, values and behaviours will show up, enabling you to use clustering algorithms to group individuals with similar profiles together. This will help you tailor your marketing efforts to each segment's unique preferences.

Apply psychographics in your marketing by experimenting with different marketing messages, creative assets and offers targeted at different psychographic segments. Use A/B testing to compare the performance of different variations and determine which resonates best with each segment. This iterative approach allows you to refine your messaging and optimise your campaigns based on real-time feedback and performance metrics.

It’s always wise to pay attention to customer feedback, reviews and testimonials to understand how your audience perceives your brand and products. By looking for recurring themes that align with specific psychographic profiles, you can address the needs and preferences of different segments effectively. And don’t forget to keep your finger on the pulse of your competitors. Use psychographics to look for ways to differentiate your brand by catering to underserved segments or offering unique value propositions.

While these methods are impactful, ethical considerations associated with collecting psychographic data must always be top-of-mind. When collecting psychographic data, it is important to obtain informed consent from the participants and to protect their privacy. It is also important to use the data in a responsible manner and to avoid making decisions based on stereotypes or generalisations.

We need to maintain transparency in data collection practices and provide participants with clear information about how their data will be utilised and adhere to relevant data protection regulations, such as GDPR or the Australian Privacy Act, to uphold ethical standards and legal requirements in psychographic data collection and usage.

By adopting ethical principles and leveraging diverse data collection methods, we can gather actionable insights while upholding consumer trust and respect.

Psychographics enable your business to create personalised experiences that align with customers' values and interests. They can offer empathetic customer service and informed product development, which leads to overall customer loyalty.

Let's explore how psychographics enhance the customer experience through the example of a pet food company.:

Imagine you're a pet owner who values premium nutrition for your furry companion. You've been purchasing pet food from a particular brand for years, but you've always wished for a more tailored shopping experience where you don’t have to scroll through pages of generic cat foods that don’t meet your cat’s strict dietary needs just to find the two options that do. Suddenly, you receive an email inviting you to join the brand's loyalty programme. As you sign up, you're asked about your pet's preferences, dietary needs and purchasing habits. Excitedly, you provide this information, eager to see what benefits the programme offers.

A few weeks later, you encounter an issue with one of your orders. Frustrated, you contact customer service for assistance. To your surprise, the representative already knows about your pet's preferences and past purchases. They address your concerns with empathy and understanding, offering a personalised solution that exceeds your expectations. Thanks to the psychographic insights gathered through the loyalty programme, the customer service team is equipped to provide more empathetic and effective support, fostering a stronger connection between you and the brand. By enhancing customer service, integrating psychographics explicitly differentiates itself from other personalisation efforts.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to you, the pet food company's product development team is analysing data from the loyalty programme to uncover trends and insights. They identify a growing demand for grain-free options among pet owners concerned about their pets' digestive health. Drawing on this psychographic data, they develop a new line of grain-free recipes tailored to meet the specific needs of health-conscious pet owners like yourself. When the new products hit the shelves, you're delighted to find options that align perfectly with your pet's dietary preferences, reinforcing your loyalty to the brand.

As you continue to engage with the brand's loyalty programme, enjoying personalised offers and discounts based on your pet's preferences, you feel valued and appreciated as a customer. You become a loyal advocate for the brand, sharing your positive experiences with friends and fellow pet owners. The personalised experiences, empathetic customer service and tailored product offerings meet your cat’s unique needs and foster a sense of trust, gratitude and loyalty that keeps you coming back time and time again. This scenario makes it clear how psychographics have a positive ongoing impact on customer loyalty and brand advocacy.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is quickly changing the landscape of psychographics. AI-powered tools can now analyse vast amounts of data to identify patterns and trends in consumer behaviour. This information can be used to create highly accurate psychographic profiles of individuals. As AI continues to develop, we can expect to see even more sophisticated psychographic analysis tools that will provide businesses with a deeper understanding of their customers.

Predictive analytics is another important trend in psychographics. Predictive analytics uses historical data to predict future behaviour. This information can be used to identify customers who are likely to make a purchase, churn or engage with a particular marketing campaign. Predictive analytics is a powerful tool that can help businesses target their marketing efforts more effectively and improve their bottom line.

The future of psychographics is bright. As AI and predictive analytics continue to develop, your business will have access to more and more information about your customers. This information can be used to create highly targeted marketing campaigns, personalised experiences and improved customer service. This, in turn, gives you the opportunity to build stronger customer relationships.

Understanding your customers in psychographic terms isn't just about personalisation and segmentation — it's about getting inside your customers’ heads and speaking to their hearts. The power of psychographics is in crafting marketing campaigns that don't just catch attention but resonate deeply, creating tailored experiences. In today's ever-changing marketing landscape, standing out is more crucial than ever. With psychographics, you're not just keeping up; you're leading the charge.

Psychographic segmentation is more than a way to segment your audience. It’s a way to learn what they value, how they think, and what motivates them to buy. That’s the key to creating marketing campaigns that truly resonate.

The trick to effective segmentation is having the data in place to support it. Salesforce Marketing Cloud will gather and unify all of your data in one place and automatically segment your audience based on chosen criteria — from demographics and geographic locations to traits, values, and interests.

With AI marketing recommendations, tailored campaigns, and customer journey mapping for every segment of your audience, Salesforce Marketing Cloud will help you connect with your customers and drive a higher ROI. Try it for free today to learn more.