What Are the Main Types of Psychographic

Segmentation? 

The list of lifestyle variables is as long as it is broad but generally, when marketers
talk about psychographic segmentation, they mean one or more of the following
characteristics.

Stage of Life

Where does the customer sit in her life cycle? Does she still live at home with
parents? Is she pre-family, with her own household but no children? Does she have
dependent children? Is she an empty nester or one-half of an older, childless
couples? Two people of the same age, location and gender may have different
buying habits depending on their life stage.

Opinions, Interests and Hobbies

This category covers a huge area and includes consumers' sporting activities,
views on the environment, cultural issues, reading habits, political opinions, what
interests them and what they do in their spare time. Anything that the customer
holds close to his heart, regardless of whether her heart values yoga or junk car
racing, this will have a material impact on the products they buy.

A good example here is the upsurge in demand for "free-from" products (gluten
free, dairy free, preservative free and so on). These products appeal to a specific
consumer group who are concerned about their health and where their food comes
from.

Personality
How self-confident, dominant or sociable is the consumer? How traditional or avant-
garde is he in his tastes? These variables are important because people buy
products that match up to their concept of themselves.

To see how this might play out, Hilton Worldwide commissioned a study that
identified consumers with various personality traits. These people were then shown
them a series of Facebook ads. Some ads were matched to a particular personality
preference — ads aimed at extroverts spoke of "good vibes" and "fun," for example,
while ads aimed at the conscientious contained messages of hard work and
organization. Some ads were mismatched. The researchers wanted to find out
whether the targeted ads would perform better than those without a personality
correlation.

The results were striking, with personality-matched ads getting at least twice the
click-through rates of the mismatched ads.

Brand Loyalty

Some customers buy the same brand all the time; others will swap out brands
according to offers and availability. It is often said that finding new customers is
ten-times harder than keeping your old ones, so there are considerable savings to
be made if a company can focus its efforts on an existing, loyal customer base.

Events and Occasions

This segment identifies when customers consume a product or service. For

instance, some people will buy red roses only on Valentine's Day, and jewelry only
for Christmas and birthdays, whereas other consumers will purchase these
products more regularly. Now that you understand these motivations, could you
develop a strategy to change the consumers' perception of the product as a
special-occasion treat?