Today’s blog is written by George Lemmond. He will be writing exerts for Dunn’s Den of Knowledge from time to time and we are excited to have him on our team! Thank you, George, and I look forward to your writings:))) Please respond to George’s post, and let us both know what you think.
“Segmentation” has always been a worthy goal of marketers. It’s a good way to target your customers, so you don’t waste your time going after people who don’t like you anyway.
It makes sense to know who might buy your product. Rich people or poor? Young vs. old, farmers or city-dwellers? College grads, illiterates, parsons or felons? It’s useful to put them into big buckets. That makes your media and promotion efforts efficient.
The fad now is “psychographics”—the art of grouping people into lifestyles. Psychologists have sliced up the population into many pieces, like—-Early Achievers, Stay-at-Homers, Front-runners, Bookworms, and Deadenders.
The problem is it pigeonholes people into static stereotypes. Once you’re a trend buster, always a trend buster. But people change roles and attitudes daily, even hourly. Are you same person at eight as at five? Monday as Saturday? At a ball game as in a traffic jam?
I ask my students whether they are a motorist or a pedestrian. Most think awhile, then choose the one which best fits them. (They thought I was analyzing their inner selves.) But after discussion they all agree that the right answer is, “BOTH—it depends!” And there are times they are a cyclist or an equestrian. Sometimes they’re even motionless.
Psychographics can be interesting, maybe useful. But it becomes psychobabble when it replaces common sense. Wouldn’t be better if you would segment your product according to the benefit it bestows, and let the customers self-select across all artificial lines? What do you think? George Lemmond
