The theory of "Audience Segmentation"

In my media lesson, I have learned about using audience segmentation so that I am able to market my products effectively and efficiently. There are three areas of segmentation that I will have to consider:

• Demographics
• Psychographics

In my lesson, I was introduced to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The hierarchy of needs visualises and chronologically orders the most important factors that influence motivation, to the least important factors.

As seen here, Maslow's hierarchy focuses on 5 main human needs that has to be satisfied:

Physiological
Ensuring that an individual is able to survive, such as the awareness of food, drink, and warmth.

Safety
Ensuring that the individual is able to keep themself safe, through shelter, police availability, and even job security.

Social
This helps ensure that the people around the viewer are able to create conversation with one another, and have a sense of belonging in society.

Self-Esteem
This is when the viewer will gain enough confidence in themself to satisfy this need.

Self-actualization
This is the creation of aspirations, and what the viewer wants to achieve in life. This may include setting out aims and objectives, so that they're able to keep their life on track.

In relation to media, I am going to use some of these needs in order to attract an audience. Although people satisfy the same demographic, they may be at different stages of this hierarchy.



We have also learned about psychographics. Psychographics are splitting up audiences based on their attitudes and values. As it may suggest, psychographics have to do with the psychology of a person, and mostly reflects on how they view life. In this instance, we've learned about 7 different types of psychographics. Below is a prezi presentation outlining these different psychographics:

http://mediastudiesblog12345.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/mainstreamers-mainstreamers-tend-to.html