Most retailers use consumer demographics (easily identifiable and measurable data) when determining and appealing to their target market. In addition, many retailers recognize that understanding consumer lifestyles and personalities are crucial in target marketing. However, too many companies do not place enough emphasis on the latter.

Here is a synopsis of the situation from Alexandra Samuel, writing for the Harvard Business School:

“Marketers are used to thinking and speaking in demographics, since slicing a market up by age, gender, ethnicity, and other broad variables can help to understand the differences and commonalities among customers. Think, our target audience is 14- to 34-year-olds,’ or ‘we are launching a campaign aimed at urban Latinos.’ But psychographics, which measure customers’ attitudes and interests rather than ‘objective’ demographic criteria, can provide deep insight that complements what we learn from demographics.”

“Until recently, it was harder to get psychographics than demographics, and even if you had psychographic data, it wasn’t always obvious how to make it actionable. The Internet has changed the relative importance of demographics and psychographics to marketers in three key ways: by making psychographics more actionable, by making psychographic differences more important, and by making psychographic insight easier to access.”

To learn a lot more from Samuel, click on the image.

Chart by Laura Schneider for HBR