Psychographic Factors: A Deep Dive

In yesterday’s blog we talked a little bit about psychographics. Today we’re going to take a deeper dive into the factors that make up psychographic profiles. They can be broken down into four major groups: beliefs, attitudes, values and needs. Beliefs are defined as something that someone holds to be true and come from our experiences. They are hard to change because the longer we hold them, the more stable and entrenched they are. We often hold beliefs at the core of “who we are.” Attitudes are defined as stable, positive or negative response to certain people, ideas, objects and/or policies. Lastly, values are goals that one strives for and they are what we consider important and desirable. They can be for reasons of nostalgia, materialism, prestige, pleasure, etc. Lastly, we all have needs. That is the motivation to fulfill any deficiency that we may have according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which we’re certain you all have heard of. These include: basic survival needs, safety/security, connection/love & belonging, esteem needs and finally, self-actualization. All of these major groups inherently affect the factors that we are now going to talk about.

  1. Lifestyle: Every day activities and how people spend their time. This can give insight into what someone is lacking in their life or has too much of. This can show you how a person views themselves and how their life is influenced by their careers and relationships.

  2. Interests: How do people choose to spend their spare time? This says a lot about a person. Typically, within a brand, the audience will share some common interests.

  3. Personality: There are five major groups and it shows how people interact with the world around them.

    1. Introvert or Extrovert

    2. Emotional or Logical

    3. Programmatic or Idealist

    4. Spontaneous or Planner

    5. Creative or Systematic

  4. Social status: This can give insight into how purchasing decisions will be affected by income.

  5. Behaviors: Defined as the way in which one acts or conducts oneself. Behaviors can be shown through a person’s buying patterns, product usage, and frequency of purchases.

    1. Habits: Daily habits are not easily broken. It is defined as a routine behavior regularly and tends to occur subconsciously.

Now that we understand the psychographic factors a little deeper, the next step is to use these to segment your audience into different groups based on similarities. When using these factors to segment your audience it will help improve your marketing campaigns. Pairing this with demographics will streamline your efforts and you will see better results.