Psychographic Market Segment
Introduction
There are three primary ways of understanding a consumer: demographics, product differentiating advantages, and psychographic factors. Demographics can be described as consumers’ external qualities and include age, education, income, or occupation. On the other hand, product differentiating advantages are external qualities meant to attract a customer and include convenience, price, and quality. Both the demographics and product differentiating benefits are too general and hence do not help identify a consumer. On the other hand, psychographic segmentation has been a reliable method of grouping prospective, previous or current customers using their shared values, beliefs, personality traits, attitudes, lifestyles, interests, and other factors. These characteristics can sometimes be outward and observable or not. Identifying these factors is such a vital marketing step for putting together profiles of individual prospects (Gajanova, Nadanyiova, & Moravcikova, 2019). Every customer or prospect possesses different psychographic profiles. Analyzing such profiles and grouping related characteristics is what marks the beginning of psychographic segmentation. This paper determines the psychographic market segment that MedEd/CHC should be attracting.
The Psychographic Market Segment that the Integrated MedEd/CHC should attract
As earlier indicated, psychographic segmentation utilizes various innate qualities of consumers to assess and analyze them deeply. These qualities may include creativity, confidence, innovativeness, self-worth, the desire to be respected by others, and lifestyle activeness, among others. In this consideration, Early Majority, a type of an adoption segment based on Everett Rogers’ model, stands out as the ideal segment for the integrated MedEd/CHC.
Qualities of Early Majority
The segment exhibits all characteristics of the Early Adopters virtually, with the only difference being the intensity. The early Majority comprises 34% of the market share, thereby increasing the market availability probability. Students making up this segment are demanding and creative but not to the level of their Early Adopter counterparts. Similarly, they are full of confidence and also demonstrate a certain degree of sophistication (often average). The early Majority also show strong social skills and possess average education.
Appropriateness of Psychographic Segment (Early Majority Segment) to MedEd University
As initially observed, marketers have three major ways through which they can understand a consumer. These include demographics, desired benefits, or product differentiating advantages and psychographic factors. Also, it has been observed that demographic factors, which are basically external qualities of consumers such as age, education, income, or occupation, are quite general and hence do not help much in identifying a consumer. Similarly, desired benefits or product differentiating advantages are also external qualities such as convenience, product price, and product quality and are usually aimed at attracting customers to a product. The product differentiating advantages, just like the demographic factors, are dependent on external qualities hence viewed as too general and less effective when it comes to identifying a consumer. However, the view changes when it comes to psychographic segmentation utilize internal qualities such as creativity, confidence, innovativeness, self-worth, the desire to be respected by others, and lifestyle activeness hence providing an insightful understanding of a customer. Psychographic factors initially outlined stand a great chance to enlighten the MedEd University online platform hence enhancing deep understanding of Early Majority Segment.
Two Marketing Strategies Consistent with the Early Majority Segment
Some of the initially highlighted qualities of Early Majority Segment students include being less demanding and creative as compared to their Early Adopter counterparts, full of confidence, demonstrate a certain degree of sophistication (often average), and exhibit strong social skills. The two most appropriate marketing strategies that match up to these qualities include customized email marketing and search engine optimization.
References
Gajanova, L., Nadanyiova, M., & Moravcikova, D. (2019). The use of demographic and psychographic segmentation to creating a marketing strategy of brand loyalty. Scientific Annals of economics and business, 66(1), 65-84.