Assembling a complete, multidimensional understanding of a consumer target is harder than you think.

First media planners go through the process of combining simple audience or reader numbers with demographics (sex, age, education). Next, they factor in lifestyle information such as media and product usage habits, available through studies conducted by PMB and NADbank as well as people-meter and diary services.

Psychographics come next. That information, generally gathered from proprietary studies, brings consumers’ beliefs, opinions and interests into the equation.

Such psychographic data has many uses in the marketing process: marketers use this information to develop products and services, select delivery channels and formulate communications plans.

Using this data, strategists are often able to go beyond making media suggestions and offer creative teams more consumer insight and guidance in developing their messages – even suggesting different creative executions to appeal to different psychographic segments of their target.

To further the process, direct response campaigns can be coded by psychographic segment so that when consumers respond, the marketer can assess which segments are more likely to buy.

Finally, once a multidimensional picture of the target consumer is formed, media planners and buyers decide what media mix will be the most effective and efficient for delivering the client’s message.