Today more than ever before, businesses are using consumer data to sell product. Everyone knows about the shady dealings of “selling data” and “big data”, but there are plenty of other ways data is found too. One of these ways is via consumers personality, behavior, and self-concept. A couple tools marketers can use (or anyone else!) are the VALS assessment, and the Claritas PRIZM database.
What is VALS?
VALS is an assessment that anybody can take from strategicbusinessinsights.com that puts American adults in one of 8 categories based on their answers to a nearly 40 question subjective test. This data allows companies to target customers, or to better understand the value system and beliefs of their existing customers. I took the test and fell into the “experiencers” catagory with a secondary catagory of “innovators”.
Experiencers are defined as:
- Are always taking in information (antennas up)
- Are confident enough to experiment
- Make the highest number of financial transactions
- Are skeptical about advertising
- Have international exposure
- Are future oriented
- Are self-directed consumers
- Believe science and R&D are credible
- Are most receptive to new ideas and technologies
- Enjoy the challenge of problem solving
- Have the widest variety of interests and activities.
Innovators are defined as:
- Are confident enough to experiment
- Make the highest number of financial transactions
- Are skeptical about advertising
- Have international exposure
- Are future oriented
- Are self-directed consumers
- Believe science and R&D are credible
- Are most receptive to new ideas and technologies
- Enjoy the challenge of problem solving
- Have the widest variety of interests and activities.
This really gives a company a lot of info to help corner their target market. If the country is only divided into 8 segments, there’s a whole lot of people in each category. To narrow things down further, another way of defining customers in by PRIZM.
What is PRIZM?
PRIZM is a segmentation technology used by Claritas.com to help company find their target markets at scale. They can be defined by nearly 70 segments, and sorted by age, income, interests, geography and more. This is a great way for businesses to understand their customers, or just for the average American to better understand their neighbors.
Check out VALS here: http://www.strategicbusinessinsights.com/vals/presurvey.shtml
Check out PRIZM here: https://claritas360.claritas.com/mybestsegments/#segDetails