Psychographics is a term used to refer to data collected about groups of people which involves how those people think, feel, act, and believe. It could be thought of cultural data, in contrast with demographic data, which focuses on things like age, geography, race, gender, and annual income. It is also distinct from behavioral data, which documents things like brand loyalty, behavior in groups of similar individuals, and so forth.
People in the marketing industry use psychographics extensively, and it can also be a part of the social sciences, with people like sociologists being interested in the culture of the people they are studying. Psychographics includes things like opinions, values, beliefs, interests, personality, and lifestyle, looking not just at who people are and what they do, but at the culture which informs their attitudes and choices. It can be studied in a variety of ways, including through surveys, interviews, and study of the media they consume.
For marketing, psychographics is important because it allows people to identify and target a specific group of people. Just looking at demographics is often not narrow enough when it comes to a good marketing campaign. For example, if a company wants to market to 20- to 25-year-old women, that's a broad category which includes a lot of psychographic groups. If instead the company looks to a specific group within that demographic range, it can develop products which speak to the psychographics of the customer, appealing to values to make a sale. For example, a company might decide to position itself as "green" to capture people who are environmentally conscious.
Profiles of individuals which discuss their psychographics can be prepared, and companies can also profile much larger groups. Surveys which are designed to test new products and to explore marketing possibilities often use psychographics as part of their structure to understand who people are, what influences their buying decisions, and how a product could be designed to appeal to them. Psychographics can influence things like product size, packaging design, and where products are sold.
Lifestyles and attitudes can have a profound impact on how people behave when purchasing or evaluating products. The category of psychographics is designed to capture and quantify these aspects of potential customers so that a company can better serve its customers, and position itself more effectively in the market. Companies that fail to consider psychographic concerns may find that their customers drift elsewhere, to companies which provide them with a more personalized experience.