Psychographic segmentation; vital for optimising tight marketing budgets

Psychographic segmentation is increasingly gaining attention globally as marketers strive to discover more effective ways of connecting with consumers.   

Marketers are often asked to find growth in a contracting marketplace or with static or reduced budgets or resources.  When just maintaining the current customer base can be considered a win, finding growth can look like a distant prospect.

Market segmentation has often been based on geographic segmentation, demographic segmentation, or behavioural segmentation. Psychographic segmentation is about how people live, think, and feel. It focuses more on why customers make certain choices and aims to understand a person’s motivation.

Psychographic segmentation divides customers, and prospective customers, into segments according to their intrinsic characteristics. These characteristics or segmentation variables include activities, attitudes, beliefs, values, perceptions, personality, social status, lifestyle, habits, interests and opinions.

“Psychographics are a customer’s inner feelings and predisposition

to behave in certain ways.”

Malcolm McDonald and Ian Dunbar, 2004

As more products and services enter markets, and competition increases, each brand must find new ways to remain competitive. To more fully understand customers in the target market, psychographic segmentation is a competitive advantage that more and more businesses are turning to.

At CARD Group Research & Insight, we use behavioural economics to delve even deeper, tapping into the consumer’s subconscious to more fully understand the motivations that drive their purchasing behaviour.

Behavioural Economics

Behavioural economics can be used to explain the non-rational reasons for making a purchase. It can also be used to anticipate how groups of consumers are going to act.

Behavioural economics bypasses ‘rational’ thinking to access subconscious thoughts. Combining behavioural economics with psychographic segmentation provides brands with highly accurate customer insight.

Psychographic segmentation and the consumer’s subconscious mind

Psychographic segmentation enables marketers to pinpoint more specific customer segments. 

These more specific customer segments mean that marketing budgets will be more effectively spent, and businesses will have the consumer insight to develop appropriate products and services.

This type of segmentation facilitates the selection of appropriate channels and the development of a meaningful message to resonate with each customer segment.

Psychographic research and analysis can, however, be challenging for marketers to implement.  We have therefore developed a system based on advanced analytics that accesses the consumer’s subconscious to discover their true thoughts and feelings whilst bypassing external biases and influences. 

Our system enables us to quantify the subconscious preferences of consumers throughout the decision-making process. Providing vital information for marketing and product development departments, advanced analytics are very effective for anticipating consumer preferences; both stated and unstated.

Using Psychographic Segmentation in Marketing

Following a psychographic segmentation research project, our reporting includes vital consumer insights that inform a marketing strategy. Clients use this information for effective product development, messaging, imagery, calls to action, positioning, channel selection, and more.

​If you are looking for a consumer insights and market research company to assist you with developing your psychographic segmentation or would like to find out more about our advanced analytics system, please please get in touch.