Psychographic Segmentation and Market Insights Framework
Project Overview
What: Organisation-wide psychographic segmentation and insights framework
Where: Ara Institute of Canterbury, multi-portfolio organisation competing in saturated acquisition markets
Primary Focus: Market research, data strategy, demand generation, insight enablement
Project Context
Marketing and recruitment decisions relied primarily on demographic and geographic data, limiting understanding of customer motivations, barriers, and decision drivers. Academic and leadership teams increasingly needed deeper insight to support programme strategy, targeting, and investment decisions.
Existing insight was inconsistent, anecdotal, and difficult to operationalise across teams.
Objective
To design and implement a psychographic segmentation framework that improved targeting precision, informed strategy, and could scale across portfolios without significant additional resourcing.
Success was defined by adoption, usability, and measurable impact, not theoretical complexity.
My Role
I served as project initiator and research lead, responsible for framework design, stakeholder buy-in, data integration, and translation of insights into practical tools used across teams.
Approach
Researched best-practice psychographic and behavioural segmentation models
Designed a modular framework adaptable to different portfolio contexts
Integrated external behavioural data with internal datasets
Developed personas, insight templates, and campaign planning tools
Ensured ethical and culturally responsive application of insights
This work was informed by postgraduate research into digital transformation and data-driven decision systems.
Key Deliverables
Psychographic segmentation framework and principles
Portfolio-specific personas and insight summaries
Campaign and strategy planning templates
Repeatable process for insight-led decision-making
Proof Points
20% improvement in conversion across targeted campaigns (approximate, directional)
Framework adopted across multiple portfolios
Insights used beyond marketing to inform programme and strategy decisions