As you know, customer segmentation divides consumers into different groups according to their attributes. Psychological segmentation further groups customers based on different psychological factors.
So, without further ado, let’s dive into understanding this concept and how you can leverage it for your business.
What is the Meaning of Psychographic Segmentation?
Psychographic segmentation meaning can be defined as customer segmentation done using data about consumer’s needs, pains, and desires. Psychographic segmentation is based on psychological factors which include behaviors, personalities, lifestyles, and beliefs.
Segmenting your audience based on psychological factors aids in connecting people on a level that aligns with their values. Analyzing these factors helps in understanding how customers may respond to marketing campaigns.
Evolution of Psychographic Segmentation
Previously marketing was limited in how it could track campaign success. The categorization was done broadly using demographic segmentation, that is, by assessing the age, location, and basic information of customers.
However, digital marketing has changed the whole scenario. Marketers now get constant feedback which helps them align their strategies with customer needs. Moreover, marketers can also reflect on how people’s lifestyle affects what they buy or click on, especially in mobile marketing. This helps them understand the customer on a personal level, improving the user personalization process.
Psychographic Segmentation Factors
Psychographics segmentation is marketing involves considering several psychographic factors that help understand consumer behavior:
- Lifestyle
This factor aids in understanding how individuals spend their time and money. It provides in-depth insights into their actual value beyond what traditional surveys or questionnaires may reveal.
- Attitude and Values
Upbringing and life experience significantly shape one’s values. It influences attitudes towards products and services. For instance, consider a person who was raised with an adventurous and risk-taking mindset.
In this case, a travel agency promoting a relaxing and calm vacation package may not interest them as they prefer adventure and thrill-seeking packages.
- Personality
Recognizing different personality types can help in tailoring marketing messages that resonate with specific audiences. Understanding if users prefer analytical information or storytelling, for instance, is key. Therefore, insights into their personality can provide you with the direction you should take with your marketing and advertising copy.
- Social Status
Considering purchasing power in the context of societal hierarchy is vital. This is because the purchasing power is directly tied to your marketing efforts since the goal is to convince the decision-makers to purchase your products or services. This extends to targeting higher authority employees in companies for your B2B marketing.
- Activities and Interests
It is important to be aware of the hobbies and interests of your users to perform more refined targeting. For example, marketing a food delivery app to health-conscious users who prioritize exercise and dietary restrictions.
- Priorities and Motivations
Identifying what drives individuals and what they prioritize helps in crafting messages that resonate with them. For instance, positioning a delivery service as a means to spend quality family time for customer segments who value such experiences can significantly boost the service’s appeal and engagement.
How to Collect Psychographic Data?
To conduct successful psychographic market segmentation, the first step is to gather customer data. You need to truly understand what truly motivates them by assessing their needs, pains, and desires, which can direct you to understand their behavior pattern.
Psychographics data does not include broad or basic customer personas. That is why, you can hardly get valuable information from surveys or questionnaires. To get real insights, you need to identify what really drives behaviors with the aid of quantitative data. Think of it like uncovering triggers- what makes people seek, buy, and stick with products. These triggers are called psychographic levers.
Psychographic Levers
Understanding psychographic levers helps uncover what motivates a customer to take action. These levers can be positive (like what they value most) or negative (such as their biggest pain points). Some of the common levers are:
Positive Levers:
- Value- What holds the highest worth for them?
- Motivation- What drives their actions the most?
- Preference- What do they favor the most?
Negative Levers
- Pain- What’s their most pressing unmet need?
- Friction- What’s their main obstacle to taking action?
- Risk- What concerns them the most?
Therefore, by understanding these levers, you can identify the primary drivers behind customer’s behaviors and needs.
Measuring Psychographic
When quantifying these psychographic segmentation variables, it’s not as straightforward as tracking typical data points. Since factors like motivation and friction are abstract, discrete-choice modeling comes into play.
This research method uses comparison-based decisions to gauge the relative importance of various options. You can implement different discrete-choice survey formats for this purpose:
- Ranked Choice Voting: Arrange options based on customers’ personal preferences.
- Points Allocation: Distribute points as per their personal preferences.
- Pairwise Comparison: Make choices between two options at a time.
- MaxDiff Analysis: Select the best and worst options from a list.
- Conjoint Analysis: Pick the best profile from a series of variables to identify the most crucial categories and their ranked order.
These methods help transform intangible factors into quantified data, allowing a deeper understanding of customers’ motivations and preferences.
Steps to Conduct Psychographic Customer Segmentation
Now that we know what market segmentation psychographic data and its measuring methods, let’s take a look at a step-by-step method for conducting psychographic analysis:
- Topic
The first step is to understand the context or focus of the research. Think of this as setting the stage for understanding how people think. It could be a whole market category or a specific scenario. For instance, imagine diving into people’s minds looking for a better CRM system.
- Audience
In this step, you need to identify your target audience. It could be your existing customers, fresh leads, or even brand-new participants. For example, your focus is on understanding what your potential customers are looking for.
- Lever
This step focuses on identifying the psychographic lever the research would be conducted on. For instance, you could be looking to identify what actions motivate your customers to come back to your business, exploring their motivation factors.
- Options
This is where you are laying out the options for your respondents. If you’re exploring your customers’ motivations, you can ask for options that influence them more. Based on your customer’s choice, you can further improve your product or service to elevate your loyal customer base.
- Format
Here, you choose a survey style. Although you can select the quicksand easy Ranked Choice Voting survey option for shirt lists, Pairwise Comparison can help you gain more insights.
- Segmentation
After gathering data, it’s time to group participants based on other details. This helps see who cares most about which factor. For instance, you can ask customers about the pricing tiers to create specific segments like your highest-paying customers.
Therefore, by breaking it down into different segments, you can clearly understand what matters to your customers the most.
Displaying Psychographic Segmentation Results
To showcase your psychographic segmentation results effectively, you can use a segmentation matrix. It is essentially a grid displaying participant-ranked options as rows and various profile-based data as columns.
The segment score helps to identify the importance of each option within a specific segment. For instance, it could reveal what’s important to customers on a CRM pricing plan. The matrix visually illustrates how a segment’s score for an option compares to the broader participant population. It helps spot where a segment differs significantly from the rest, indicating the unique references or priorities of your customers.
Examples of Psychographic Segmentation
Here are some psychographics segmentation examples for you to understand the concept better:
- Fitness and Wellness
A fitness app identifies a cluster of users who consistently engage in intense workouts during weekday mornings. By recognizing these users’ dedication to their fitness goals and goal-oriented routines, the app can offer personalized workout challenges or exclusive access to advanced training plans. This caters to their dedication and encourages continuous engagement with the app.
- Luxury Fashion
Another one of the effective psychographic examples can be assessed in the luxury fashion industry. A high-end fashion retailer observes a group of customers who consistently purchase designer items across various collections, focusing solely on limited editions.
From this behavior, the marketing team identifies a preference of this customer group for exclusivity and rarity. The company can craft campaigns to highlight early access to limited releases or host exclusive events tailored to engage and retain these customers.
Mobile Marketing Tips for Psychographic Segmentation
Follow the below strategies to successfully conduct psychographic segmentation:
- Richer Data is Key
Mobile marketing makes it easier to track user engagement broadly by time of day or day of the week and more. The more data points you identify, the more insightful information you can gain to understand the difference between different customer segments. So, focus on gathering an abundance of data that can help in understanding their priorities which may differ based on industry, company size, or geography.
To gather detailed information, you can also utilize consumer personas. It helps you identify user behavior, app usage patterns, and references. Moreover, these personas serve as a guiding framework through which you can identify user preferences.
Include a name and photo of your customer, their demographic profile, background information as well as their goals and challenges. This can help you create a true connection to your customers, aiding you to align your marketing strategies.
- Keep up with Changing Customer Segments
As your product or service evolves or competition changes, your customer’s perspectives also shift. In this case, you need to refresh your psychographic segmentation yearly to ensure your strategies align with current user mindsets and behaviors.
- Start Qualitative, Go Quantitative
Begin by understanding users deeply using qualitative methods in mobile app usage, feedback, and interviews. This lays the groundwork for building effective surveys or other data collection methods for gathering quantitative data. Additionally, continuously refine your segmentation process by incorporating user feedback or behavior patterns observed within the app.
Conclusion
Thus, psychographic segmentation can help marketers understand what their customers truly want. While digital relationships with companies can feel cold, disconnected, and inhuman, it’s integral to put a personal touch in your communication with customers. This is where the data-driven approach to understanding user insights can prove to be effective. It can help you target potential audiences and tailor strategies for maximum impact.