Advantage of Plenty - Psychographics, Demographics, And Audience Segmentation

I find that companies forget about creation of a brand for audience segments.  Oh, brands do claim they know target demographics; however, audience segmenting is not straightforward . You know, things such as:

• age ranges,
• race,
• gender,
• income variables,
• religion,
• so forth

are great aspects to gather when it comes down to demographics That type of detailing though is for an undivided target audience.  Push advertising relies on these types of details to push out messages; hence, one size fits all messaging matches a brand when it assumes its audience to be one sized.


The thing about websites, social media, and target audiences, is never presume your content resonates. Even when economic volatility exists or persists, a brand cannot blame it for its failure.  Why? Because, there exists a psychological layer of individualized personalization for consumers that stretches way beyond demographics and extends into understanding audience segment behaviors. Today, brands must sub-target and create compelling messages, within its undivided demographic, that speak in a language hitting the right notes. This means that website messages must voice with social messaging otherwise messages lose meaning, and interest of attracted audiences. When psychographics are turned on, this approach eases competing factor tensions that undivided audiences face, and helps to  strengthen social relationships at the same time. Brands should also run separate campaigns for each target subsegment with subdomains that voice the same. What results is better aimed messages that resonate with each targeted subsegments. This, in turn, benefits a brand by creating a focus around how creative marketing dollars are spent. Rather than just spending. In other words, psychographic profiling of audience segments empowers a brand to understand how to better communicate, attract, and engage.

Psychological content, therefore, combines with target audience “self-view” to be the common tread, which motivates and drives target audiences. Websites and social content messaging are able to make provisions for:

• lifestyle choices
• habits
• attitudes
• group opinion worth.

This messaging approach is far from perfect. Praxis can leverage a brand’s ability to better predict how to:

• trigger buying habits
• interpret behavior of audience segments
• effect audience gravitation.

For instance, a brand may use the same benefit content message down to its UVP except for the digital imagery used to resonate with audience segments. By changing that one simple focus, it allows each consumer segment to focus on the benefit content message for how a brand provides benefits to an individual segment rather than a generalized undivided surface approach.

Take these two beauty magazines.




Both cover fashion content, yet it’s psychographics that keep their audiences separated and loyal.

Whether you’re creating content for a website or for social media, demographics cannot live without psychographics; likewise, psychographics cannot be applied without a brand knowing its larger undivided demographic. When combined though, marketed content outcome developed for consumers details an immediate sense of cognizance for where to buy; and, this cognizance is what elevates way of life choice selection for purchasing plus behavioral tendencies across the audience subgroups.


Additional Reading Material:


Lloyd-Jones, A, & Beynon-Davies, P. (2007). Segmenting the second hand book sectors core customer’s using demographic, psychographic and benefits. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE BOOK, 4(1). p. 133.


Janus Thinking.  “The Role of Psychographics in Luxury Marketing.” 11 Sep 2008. www.janusthinking. com/2008/09/the-role-of-psychographics-in-luxury-marketing/


Samardzjia, Slavi. “Psychographics: The Overlooked Value of Plenty.” DMNews. 23 Mar 2006.
www.dmnews. com/Psychographics-The-Overlooked-Value-of-Plenty/article/90684/