In our increasingly saturated digisphere, gaining and retaining consumers’ attention can be tough — even with eye-catching stories to tell. This is why savvy brands are using lifestyle marketing to increase trust, connection, and authenticity. Not just for content purposes, but also for segmentation and performance marketing.
Lifestyle marketing puts the focus on authentic connection and trust between a brand and consumers, from acquisition to retention.
Edelman reports that 81% of consumers say they have to trust a brand in order to buy from them. This was similar across different global markets, consumer ages, and income groups. According to Stackla, authenticity is a key factor for 86% of consumers when deciding what brands they like and support.
Lifestyle segmentation helps marketers identify consumers whose aspirations and values align with those of the brand. The next steps are easy: Meet them where they are with content and experiences that are personal and with a point of view that resonates across the digital divide.
What Is Lifestyle Segmentation?
A type of psychographic segmentation, lifestyle segmentation is a way of understanding and predicting consumer behavior based on the way a person lives. Lifestyle is expressed through a collection of actions/attitudes, interests, and opinions (AIOs) that reflect an individual’s sense of self, values, and priorities. Or, the values and priorities they aspire to and are motivated by.
Whether aspirational or actual, AIOs influence buying decisions throughout the funnel. And because lifestyle is a collection of AIOs, lifestyle segmentation can be more all-encompassing than simply considering demographic and geographic factors when building a marketing campaign. Lifestyle segmentation is ultimately more effective at enabling valuable and authentic personalization opportunities.
What Makes Lifestyle Segmentation So Powerful for Marketers?
The most valuable application of lifestyle segmentation has to do with customer acquisition and targeting. Why? Because lifestyle attributes act like matchmakers, bringing together brands and consumers who embrace similar values, priorities, and products.
Tactically, using lifestyle segmentation to define clear and specific campaign targets makes it much easier to create personalized content. The types of offers, interactions, and experiences that build ongoing relationships. One reason is that the focus is no longer on the product or even the brand, it’s on the experience of being part of a community that values the same things. Where personal priorities and goals are reflected and respected.
Lifestyle segmentation helps marketers initiate and sustain relationships with consumers in ways that feel real, responsive, and relevant. These are key ingredients for acquisition and customer loyalty. Less effort (and cost) has to be spent on acquisition to replace lost customers, leaving more resources available for adding new customers and deepening relationships with long-term customers—not to mention the cumulative effect of word-of-mouth referrals and stellar reviews.
How Interest Data Plays an Important Role in Lifestyle Segmentation
A potential customer can be classified under a specific lifestyle based on interests, actions, and characteristics gleaned from online behavior. For example, if a user consistently browses content about commuter drive-times, yard supplies, gardening services, and home repairs, the user could be considered a “suburban dweller.” A consumer who regularly reads basketball news, searches for season tickets, and scrolls tailgating tips could be classified as an “NBA sports fan.” Lifestyle is an embodiment of a collection of unique interests, which is why rich interest data is an integral part of a refined lifestyle segmentation exercise, regardless of the use case.
ShareThis Lifestyle Scores, derived from real-time behavioral data across the global web, enables marketers to easily segment their target audiences and customer lists by lifestyle with a high degree of confidence. These user scores provide timely and ready-to-use insights across a wide range of lifestyle categories, such as “Outdoor Enthusiast” or “College Student,” capturing interests, preferences, habits, attitudes, and even political affiliations.
Lifestyle Segmentation and Insights Builds Stronger Customer Connections
Lifestyle segmentation ensures that consumers not only get clearer messages about products and services, but they also get experiences that align with what they care about. And real-time interest data can illuminate the values that consumers are espousing. All in all, with lifestyle segmentation and insights, marketers get customers, with less effort, more engagement, and more loyalty.
