Psychographic Data Explained Definition, Uses, Pros, & More

While the data gathered by StatSocial isn’t definitive, it’s meant to enhance audience insights and give companies a clearer picture of who they are trying to reach. A number of startups are working on providing psychographic insights to enhance audience outreach. Companies that master this often become "love brands," companies that people feel a deep personal connection to. Psychographics definition refers to the qualitative study of consumers based on psychological attributes, such as values, desires, goals, interests, and lifestyle choices. In this section, we highlight three examples of companies that are using psychographics to their advantage.

Psychographics are the psychological and cognitive attributes of a consumer that reveal their beliefs, values, and goals. Psychographics are applied to the study of cognitive attributes such as attitudes, interests, opinions, and belief, as well as the study of overt behavior (e.g., activities). For example, VALS is a proprietary framework created by Strategic Business Insights that separates US adults into eight distinct types by evaluating their motivations and resources to understand anticipated consumer behavior. Private research companies conduct psychographic research using proprietary techniques. Psychographics have been applied to the study of personality, values, opinions, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles.

For example, your target buyer might be interested in hiking, but in reality, they don’t have the time or feel confident enough to go hiking on their own. Someone who’s not even aware of their problem might be reached through a Google ad or an organic content strategy. Knowing your target buyer’s lifecycle stage can help you decide which marketing channels you should use. Is your target buyer aware of the product or potential solution yet? Lifecycle marketing is all about knowing where your target customer stands in their purchasing lifecycle.

What Are Examples of Psychographics?

Its new brand focused on “unleashing creative energy” while promoting a clean UX, hinting at targeting companies who are young, trendy and focused around the cloud and data. Common demographic groups include Generation X, which is the generation born between 1960’s to 1970’s, or a millennial, who reached adulthood in the early 21st century. However, without knowing why they eat KFC twice a week, it may be hard to come up with a killer marketing strategy. And, if you’re looking to start using psychographics in marketing, have a look at our visitor feedback tools, as well as our GDPR and data privacy resource hub.

Behavioral segmentation

• It works best layered on demographic and behavioral data, and it turns generic campaigns into ones that feel written for the reader.
• Thus, despite recent negative press for companies like Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, psychographic marketing will likely be a key part of the multi-billion dollar ad market for years to come.
• You can create more detailed profiles as you discover new psychographic subjects to study.
• If you share the information that exactly meets the audience's desires, you are good to guide them to make the final decision.

While users could see which Facebook pages had paid for specific advertisements on the platform, they could not identify specific individuals who had paid for those ads. Thus, despite recent negative press for companies like Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, psychographic marketing will likely be a key part of the multi-billion dollar ad market for years to come. And it really isn’t going to gain you much more than knowing if the person is registered as a republican or a democrat.” A study conducted by researchers at the University of California found that most political campaigns have zero discernible impact on voters’ political opinions. Some, including a paper authored by researchers at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in 2017, reveal that psychographic targeting can make certain advertisements more persuasive. L.L. Bean’s psychographic research revealed that its target market’s top priority was not beating their personal best or following fashion trends — they wanted to share their experiences and the joy of the great outdoors with those closest to them.

Beyond being more effective, the ability to create targeted marketing campaigns also means less wastage of marketing dollars. With a deeper understanding of what resonates with different customer segments, businesses can allocate resources more efficiently. This could mean tweaking a product’s design based on lifestyle preferences, or introducing new services that address specific pain points. Psychographic segmentation allows businesses to shape products and services that integrate seamlessly into a customer and prospect’s life. By understanding people on a personal and emotional level, companies can craft messages that resonate more powerfully. Businesses even use psychographic data to develop products and services that resonate more deeply with specific segments of their market.

Make some initial demographic considerations to establish an initial object of study to pull data from. A thorough psychographic profile will tell you which groups will be most receptive to your company's products and services. Psychographic segmentation helps companies clarify who their customers are and why they are as they are. Without psychographics, companies would rely on hunches about what their customers want or need.

Efficiency-driven users gravitate toward automation features. This behavioral data helps you understand how to use psychographic information to motivate different user segments effectively. Use psychographic insights to understand what what are psychographics motivates each psychographic segment.

For example, if a website is feeding data to Facebook about who’s visiting, then Facebook can start looking for correlations in interests, etc. between those visitors and those visitors’ friends. There’s also Facebook Social Graph, which is designed to identify connections between Facebook users. Tracking from Facebook and Google is planted all over the web, so these companies are collecting data about you no matter where you go.

Marketing companies also seek to understand consumers’ opinions on stores, locations, products, and branding, in order to drive successful campaigns. If companies are able to identify the interests of potential customers, they will be better able to tailor campaigns to appeal to them. Ultimately, marketing exists to drive sales; it’s a large part of what keeps companies afloat, and ensures that your colleagues can pay their bills on time. This information is pure marketing gold, since it can be used to laser-target your marketing outreach and stay competitive. Demographic targeting has long been essential to modern outreach, but psychographics in marketing take this process further by enabling you to tap into your customers’ needs and desires. This focuses on our activities, interests, and opinions (you may see this written as AIOs), and enables companies to tailor their marketing to specific consumer requirements.