criteria for segmenting consumers by lifestyle, attitudes, beliefs, values, personality, buying motives, and/or extent of product usage. Psychographic analyses are used like geographic (place of residence or work) and demographic (age, income, occupation) criteria to describe and identify customers and prospective customers and to aid in developing promotion strategies designed to appeal to specific psychographic segments of the market for a product. For example, the market for shampoo may consist of various psychographic segments described by their primary purchase motives (beauty, health, grooming), usage styles (daily, weekly, salononly), or lifestyle (frequent travelers, parents with young children, empty-nesters).

The psychographic characteristics of the market affect not only advertising copy but also packaging (travel size, child-proof, decorator pump) and channels of distribution (supermarkets, pharmacies, specialty stores).

Psychographic data can be gathered firsthand through personal interviews, focus group interviews, or questionnaires, or purchased from research companies in the form of list overlays for direct marketers or market profiles for general marketers.

population statistics with regard to socioeconomic factors such as age, income, sex, occupation, education, family size, and the like. Advertisers often define their target market in terms of demographics; thus, demographics are a very important aspect of media planning in matching the media with the market. Each demographic category is broken down (by the various research companies) according to its characteristics.