Psychographic Segmentation: a Full Guide with Examples

The success of any business is directly related to how well the product, service, strategy, and messages are aligned with the needs of the target audience. Therefore, you need to explore your customers, understand their goals, values, and desires, and then utilize psychographic segmentation to categorize them into distinct groups. 

People are different, and while one customer segment may prioritize the price of a cotton T-shirt, another might be more concerned about whether it is made from organic cotton. 27% of consumers consider a brand's ethical values, such as social and environmental issues, more important than price when deciding to make a purchase. That's why it's so important to find the keys to the heart of each audience segment individually.  

Let's take a closer look at psychographic segmentation, what it is, how it differs from other types of segmentation, how to implement it, and what services you can use. We have also prepared examples illustrating how well-known brands engage with different audience segments, allowing you to grasp the potential benefits of this approach in boosting your profits.

What is Psychographic Segmentation in Marketing  

Marketing psychographic segmentation is an approach that allows you to categorize your target audience based on factors such as:

• Values and beliefs: what is important to them? (e.g., family, safety, environmentalism). What do they believe to be true? (e.g., the importance of organic food and social responsibility).
• Interests: what are their hobbies and passions? (e.g., fitness, travel, technology).
• Lifestyles: how do they live their lives? (e.g., active, busy professionals, budget-conscious families).
• Social status: what social group they belong to (white-collar, blue-collar, student, retired, etc.).
• Personality traits: are they extroverted or introverted? Risk takers or cautious?
• Attitudes: how do they feel about certain products, brands, or social issues?

Understanding these psychological aspects gives you deeper insight into consumer motivations and decision-making. You can move beyond ‘who’ you're targeting to ‘why’ they make their choices. This allows marketers to explore consumers’ mindsets and build clear cause-and-effect relationships.

Consumers who share common characteristics in demographic or behavioral segmentation may be included in different psychographic segmentation segments. For example, two women under 40, both mothers of two teenage children, are grouped together in the same demographic segment. However, when considering their psychographic profiles, one of them belongs to the ‘board game lover’ segment, while the other is classified as a ‘lover of outdoor activities.’

The following chart helps clarify what is psychographic segmentation and how it differs from some other types of segmentation:

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The Importance of Psychographic Segmentation

The key advantage of this type of segmentation for business is its accuracy. By focusing on psychographic traits, you can deliver your marketing messages to a narrow target audience, providing them with a personalized experience. Studies by McKinsey & Company show that personalization can increase revenues by 5-15% and increase marketing ROI by 10-30%. Craft messaging that resonates with your audience's values, interests, and aspirations to make it happen. 

Marketing psychographic segmentation provides businesses with other benefits as well:

• Better consumer understanding. Focusing on internal preferences rather than external characteristics can help you better understand why customers choose a particular product, what selling points are most important to them, and what causes them to abandon a purchase.
• Enhancing targeting accuracy. By segmenting consumers based on psychographic variables, marketers can tailor their messaging and offers to resonate with specific audience groups. This leads to more effective targeting and higher conversion rates.
• Increasing customer engagement. Understanding consumers’ psychographic profiles enables you to create content and campaigns that resonate emotionally with the target audience, fostering stronger connections and customer engagement.
• Improving product development. By understanding consumer pain points, lifestyles, and aspirations, you can understand exactly how your products and services can improve customers’ lives. This allows you to determine the direction of product development.
• Maintaining brand loyalty. Psychographic segmentation makes it easier to understand your customers' core values and motivations. As a result, you can create tailored experiences that meet their needs and preferences, fostering a sense of value and connection. After receiving a personalized experience, 78% of consumers are likely to make a repeat purchase and recommend the company to their friends and family.

Last but not least, you can use psychographic segmentation to rethink your PR strategy and social activities. 55% of survey respondents say that brand purpose, such as broad social aims, is important for maintaining loyalty. Through psychographic segmentation, you can study your audience, determine if a brand's social and environmental responsibility are among their priorities, and find out what causes they are concerned about.

6 Variables of Psychographic Segmentation with Examples

By understanding the six key variables that shape your audience’s psychology, you can craft targeted marketing strategies that resonate on a deeper level. Let’s explore each variable with examples of psychographic segmentation from leading brands.

1. Segmentation by Social Status

This segmentation categorizes consumers based on their socioeconomic status, income level, occupation, education, etc. Social status in marketing psychographic segmentation is nuanced and complex, encompassing broader aspects of a person’s social identity and lifestyle choices. It takes into account not only what a person does for a living or their level of education but also how they perceive themselves and their place in society. 

IKEA’s Focus on Budget-Conscious Shoppers

IKEA is a furniture retailer that offers a wide range of products that appeal to different psychographic segments based on their social status. For example, the brand offers affordable furniture and home accessories for budget-conscious consumers, as well as higher-end, design-oriented products for customers who value style and status. 

The brand's advertisements and promotional materials often showcase aspirational lifestyle imagery that resonates with consumers across different socioeconomic backgrounds. But most of all, the brand resonates with budget-conscious consumers. IKEA’s marketing highlights affordability, sustainability, design, and do-it-yourself assembly, appealing to customers who want to furnish their homes without breaking the bank.

For example, the brand offers various online tools to help customers visualize and plan their home furnishing projects. Users can create a virtual floor plan and design their own furniture arrangement. This allows them to select items that match the nuances of their home and avoid wasting money on unsuitable purchases. However, customers prioritizing quality over cost are encouraged to book virtual meetings with a professional interior designer. 

2. Segmentation by Lifestyle

Psychographic segmentation by lifestyle categorizes consumers based on their activities, opinions, behaviors, and so on. It recognizes that individuals with similar lifestyles often share common preferences and purchasing habits. Here is one of many psychographic segmentation examples in marketing with a lifestyle focus.

Lululemon Prioritizes Sustainability and… Repeat Purchases 

Sportswear manufacturer Lululemon's core audience consists of health-conscious and eco-conscious consumers. Its ‘Like New’ program appeals to these clients by offering a sustainable and environmentally friendly solution for purchasing activewear. By encouraging customers to trade in their gently used Lululemon apparel for store credit, the program promotes the values of sustainability and responsible consumption, which resonate with the brand’s target audience.

Moreover, the ‘Like New’ program helps Lululemon build brand loyalty by incentivizing customers to continue shopping with the brand. By offering store credit in exchange for traded-in items, Lululemon encourages repeat purchases. 

3. Segmentation by Beliefs

Using this psychographic segmentation, you group consumers based on their core values, beliefs, and principles. For example, segments could include environmentally conscious consumers, socially responsible individuals, etc.

Interests and beliefs are often integral components of lifestyle segmentation. However, lifestyle paints the big picture, while its specific components reveal the details that really influence the purchase decision.

Dove’s Natural Beauty Manifestation 

Dove is a personal care brand that targets consumers who believe in the importance of self-acceptance and body positivity. The brand’s marketing campaigns challenge conventional beauty standards and promote inclusivity and diversity in advertising. The ‘Redefining Beauty’ campaign is one of Dove’s examples of psychographic segmentation. It celebrates women of all shapes, sizes, and ages, resonating with consumers who believe in embracing natural beauty and self-confidence.

By aligning its messaging with these values, Dove has built a strong emotional connection with its target audience, fostering greater brand loyalty and advocacy among consumers who resonate with its mission of redefining beauty standards.

4. Segmentation by Interest

This type of psychographic segmentation involves targeting consumers based on their specific interests, hobbies, or preferences. Such segmentation can even be applied to products that are themselves hobby objects. An interesting example is the LEGO brand. 

LEGO’s Search for New Set Ideas

LEGO’s marketing efforts focus on inspiring creativity and storytelling through its building sets and toys. The brand engages with its target audience via content that showcases imaginative creations, user-generated content, and collaborations with popular franchises. For example, LEGO has released products based on Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Marvel, as well as sets inspired by historical landmarks, scientific discoveries, and more. This way, the brand covers fans' interests in various cultural phenomena. And the company learns about these interests through the LEGO Ideas project. 

The platform allows fans to submit their own ideas for sets. If their project receives enough support from the community, it may be considered for production. By engaging with fans and allowing them to contribute to the product development process, LEGO can identify and target segments of interest within its fan base.

5. Segmentation by Personality Psychotype

Personality psychotype segmentation is a marketing approach that categorizes consumers based on their personality traits, behaviors, and psychological characteristics. Each business has its own customer psychotypes, depending on the industry. For example, a sportswear store may have relevant characters such as a jogger, a climber, a yoga enthusiast, etc. Each has specific traits. A runner likes speed, a climber likes adrenaline, and a yoga fan likes peace and relaxation. 

Herschel’s Bags for Adventurers and Perfectionists

Herschel Supply Co., the manufacturer of backpacks and bags, has employed marketing campaigns for different personality psychotypes:

• The New Classics campaign targets urbanites who are stylish, practical, and value-conscious. It showcases Herschel bags and accessories as essential companions for city living, commuting, and everyday activities.
• The #WellPacked campaign targets individuals who are organized, efficient, and value preparation. It features curated content and tips on packing techniques, organization hacks, and travel essentials. 
• The #WellTravelled campaign is aimed at customers who are adventurous, travel-savvy, and value exploration. It features user-generated content from clients showcasing their Herschel bags in various travel destinations worldwide.

These campaigns are very illustrative examples of psychographic segmentation, which helps Herschel create personalized experiences and messaging that resonate with individuals, fostering stronger connections.

6. Segmentation by Attitude

This type of marketing psychographic segmentation involves categorizing consumers based on their attitudes toward certain products, brands, or societal issues. 

Chipotle Tempts with Delicious Food Without GMOs and Hormones  

Chipotle, the fast-casual restaurant chain, uses attitude segmentation to target consumers who prioritize fresh, high-quality ingredients and sustainable sourcing practices. By emphasizing their commitment to using locally sourced, organic, and responsibly raised ingredients, Chipotle appeals to consumers who value food transparency, ethical sourcing, and healthy eating.

Chipotle’s ‘Food with Integrity’ program focuses on sourcing ingredients from farmers and ranchers who meet strict standards for animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and food quality.

How to Do a Psychographic Segmentation

Marketing psychographic segmentation requires a comprehensive strategy for collecting and analyzing consumer data. This step-by-step guide shows how to create audience profiles that will help you launch marketing campaigns that target the aspirations of your desired customers.

1. Start with a clear goal. Are you personalizing a product or updating an advertising campaign? While the process of studying the audience remains consistent, the focus and emphasis may shift depending on the goal. When updating a product, parameters such as lifestyle, values, personality traits, interests, and usage patterns are crucial for understanding how to enhance the product to better meet the diverse needs of specific segments. When launching a marketing campaign, similar parameters are considered, but the emphasis may be more on understanding the emotional triggers, aspirations, and communication preferences of each segment to develop compelling campaigns that drive engagement and conversion.

2. Identify broad audience groups. This step will help you determine exactly who to research. For example, although age is not a psychographic trait, understanding the general age ranges helps you identify the right segment to study the preferences of its members.

3. Determine the range of questions. Create polls and questionnaires to gather psychographic data from your audience. Don’t forget about open-ended questions: video feedback or text fields can provide valuable insights. For example, you can ask a consumer, 'What types of entertainment do you prefer?' and offer a choice of several options relevant to your business. You can also ask an open-ended question such as, 'How often do you travel, and what kind of destinations do you prefer?' and ask them to write their answer in a special field.

4. Gather valuable data. Here are a few methods to collect psychographic data:

• Focus groups: conduct online or in-person sessions.
• Customer interviews: conduct in-depth one-on-one interviews to gather rich data.
• Online surveys: special platforms allow you to add surveys directly to your website or send them through email.
• Brainstorming: collaborate with customer-facing teams to leverage existing knowledge about your audience.
• Public research: government websites, non-profits, industry experts, and specialized companies often provide free reports packed with valuable consumer insights.
• Web Analytics: tools like Google Analytics can provide basic psychographic information about your website visitors, such as their interests.
• Social listening: observe interactions, comments, and pain points your customers express on social media.

5. Refine and analyze. Ensure your segments are distinct, meaning each group should have unique characteristics with minimal overlap. If a segment is too small, consider combining it with a similar one or removing it. It's time to discover patterns by analyzing customer feedback, as described in this article. Give your segments names that reflect their main characteristics. Develop personas that represent their key psychographic traits.

Let's take a look at one of the hypothetical examples of psychographic segmentation by social status with the practical implementation of the insights gained. 

An electronics manufacturer produces affordable smartwatches with a shockproof case, targeting blue-collar customers. However, audience research using psychographic segmentation has shown that the rugged design also appeals to wealthy customers, who purchase it primarily for its style, often overlooking functionality.

With this insight, marketers can develop campaigns tailored to different target segments. One campaign can highlight the smartwatch's reliability, while another can focus on its stylish design and suitability for fashionable outfits.

Furthermore, the manufacturer can expand its product lineup by introducing a premium version of the smartwatch featuring top-of-the-line electronic hardware while maintaining its distinctive design. This move will broaden the customer base, tap into a high-margin market segment, and boost profits. 

Data Сollection Tools and Services

You have many options for getting valuable information about your target audience. We have compiled a list of online tools that can help you collect consumer data from various sources, which you can then use for psychographic segmentation. 

Claspo.io

Did you know that the quickest way to gather valuable customer data is to launch a survey using pop-ups from Claspo? Yes, our free website widgets go beyond typical email collection. With our drag-and-drop editor, you can create a survey form containing both closed-ended and open-ended questions.

Let's consider an example of a survey that a pet store could deploy using our pop-ups. Look at the examples of open-ended questions where customers can input their responses.

First question: allows respondents to provide detailed insights into their lifestyle and preferences regarding their interactions with their pets. It gives a more nuanced understanding of the human-animal bond and the role pets play in their owners' lives.

Responses to this question can reveal various psychographic aspects such as lifestyle preferences, leisure activities, and emotional connections with pets. For example, responses mentioning activities like hiking, running, or traveling with pets indicate an active lifestyle. In contrast, those mentioning cuddling, watching TV, or playing indoor games may indicate a preference for more relaxed activities. This information can assist in tailoring product development, marketing campaigns, and service offerings to different lifestyle segments.

Second question: explores the pain points and challenges pet owners encounter in pet care. It helps identify areas where pet owners may need additional support, guidance, or solutions. Responses can reveal common challenges such as behavior issues, health concerns, grooming difficulties, or time constraints. 

Multiple-choice question: helps segment customers based on their pet's primary diet. It can provide insight into the types of pet food products that are popular among different segments of pet owners.

If you think these questions aren't quite cutting it, they're still a great place to start your psychographic segmentation journey. Consumers are more likely to complete a survey with fewer than 10 questions (55% of respondents) compared to one with 10 or more questions (32% of respondents). Plus, 66% of consumers will complete a survey with an intuitive interface. Seems like our pop-ups were practically made for that, huh?

With Claspo, you can collect customer responses and seamlessly transfer the gathered data to your CRM or CDP for analysis and audience psychographic segmentation. After that, use our widgets to ensure an omnichannel personalization strategy. Let's see a simple chain example:

1. You've identified a segment of consumers who are concerned about their pet's hair and consider the composition of the food to be the main purchasing criterion.
2. You reach this specific segment via an email campaign offering suitable food containing ingredients that are beneficial for healthy skin and coats.
3. You set up your Claspo widget with a tailored promotional offer that will be shown only to visitors arriving from this specific campaign. 
4. Your tailored offer hits the target, aligns with the segment's needs, and increases the likelihood of purchase!

Google Analytics

Google Analytics offers a wealth of data and analysis tools that marketers can leverage to segment their audiences. Specifically, it provides insights into users' interests based on their online activity. Marketers can use this information to segment their audience based on psychographic factors such as lifestyle, hobbies, and preferences. In addition, GA allows users to create custom segments based on a variety of criteria, including behavior, demographics, and user attributes. Marketers can create segments based on the psychographics they want to target, such as frequent shoppers, technology enthusiasts, or environmentally conscious consumers.

Userpilot

Userpilot is a platform specializing in user engagement, interest, and product adoption. While it does not directly offer tools for psychographic segmentation, it can be effectively utilized for this purpose when combined with other services. For example, Userpilot enables you to create and deploy in-app surveys to gather user feedback directly within your product. These surveys can be customized to collect information on various aspects of user experience, satisfaction, and preferences. 

The platform also enables you to track user behavior. By analyzing how different segments of users interact with your product, you can identify patterns and behaviors that may correlate with psychographic characteristics. For example, you might discover that users who engage more frequently with certain features tend to have specific interests or preferences. 

Kissmetrics

Kissmetrics is an analytics platform that specializes in providing insights into user behavior and engagement across digital products and services. It offers a range of features and capabilities that can be leveraged in conjunction with other tools and strategies to support psychographic segmentation efforts. 

By segmenting users based on their interactions, such as pages visited, actions taken, and time spent, you can gain insights into their preferences, interests, and motivations. The platform also enables you to track custom events and actions, such as sign-ups, purchases, form submissions, and content downloads. By analyzing event data, you can identify behavioral patterns that match psychographics.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is best known as a social media management platform. While it's not specifically designed for psychographic segmentation, it does offer the Social Listening feature. This approach allows users to set up streams to monitor conversations, mentions, and hashtags related to their brand, industry, or relevant topics. By examining social media conversations, you can gain insights into the attitudes, interests, opinions, and behaviors of your target audience.

Psychographic Segmentation is a Never-Ending Story

Despite its complexity, psychographic segmentation is an accurate method that is well worth the effort. You need to monitor and research your audience data and collect customer opinions on an ongoing basis. By comparing this data over time, you can detect significant changes in audience preferences and understand when to revise your segmentation strategy.

Claspo can assist you with data gathering. You don't need any coding knowledge to work with our platform, as our editor is easy and intuitive to use. You can quickly customize any of the hundreds of ready-made widget templates to suit your needs or create your own from scratch. Want to see how effective Claspo could be for your business? Give it a try with a free lifetime plan and see the first results in no time!