Market Segmentation: How to Target Mentalities, Not Demographics [2026]
Updated: Oct 21
Last updated: October 2026
In marketing meetings, you’ll often hear: “Our target audience is [X age], [X status], living in [X location].” Or, “Our brand is for Gen Z.”
Everyone nods. It sounds strategic.
But here’s the real question: Would you turn away a customer who doesn’t fit that profile?
If not, then maybe your targeting isn’t as inclusive—or effective—as you think.
Most market segmentation fails because it stops at demographics. Age, location, job title, and company size tell you who someone is on paper. They don't tell you what they believe, what they're afraid of, or why they would choose you over the cheaper option.
This guide shows how to segment by mentality instead—and uses the four client segments we actually target at Joyce Tsang Content Marketing as the worked example.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between demographic and psychographic segmentation?
Demographic segmentation groups people by measurable traits—age, location, income, job title. Psychographic (or mentality-based) segmentation groups them by values, pain points, goals, and beliefs. Demographics tell you who someone is. Mentalities tell you why they buy.
Can you use both demographics and mentalities together?
Yes. Use demographics to find where your audience is. Use mentalities to decide what to say to them. The mistake is stopping at demographics and assuming you know the person.
How many segments should a small business have?
Three to five is workable. More than that, and the messaging fragments. Fewer than three, and you're probably speaking to "everyone," which means no one.
How do you validate a mentality segment?
Look for the same pain language across at least three independent sources—forum questions, competitor reviews, and sales-call objections. If the same phrase appears in all three, the mentality is real.
Does this work for B2B as well as B2C?
Yes. In B2B, the mentality is often professional identity and risk tolerance rather than personal values. A founder buying marketing support and a procurement manager buying software are both making identity-and-risk decisions, not demographic ones.
What Is Market Segmentation?
Source: Sterlingtrustees
Market segmentation is the process of dividing a market into smaller groups with similar needs or characteristics, so you can create targeted campaigns that resonate with each group.
The common types are demographic, psychographic, firmographic, benefit-based, transactional, technographic, seasonal, and behavioural. Most businesses default to demographic or firmographic because they're easy to measure. But easy to measure is not the same as useful to target.
Why Demographics Aren't Enough
Demographics give you a broad idea of who you want to speak to. The detail lives in the mentality shared by that pool of people.
The demographics of your target audience is nothing more than just a broad idea of who you want to speak to. The details should be in identifying the mentality shared by your pool of customers. (This relates back to my previous article on "Customers are not interested in your product, They are interested in solving a problem.")
Consider a fashionable elderly couple. Most brands ignore them because they fall outside the 18–35 targeting default. But the behaviours, pain points, and interests those brands are chasing are often shared by this ignored group. The demographic missed them. The mentality would have found them.
The same thing happened to us. Our Slasher mentorship was built for people around 25–34, interested in social media and digital marketing. Our first enrolled mentee was a woman well over 50, planning her golden years after retirement. She shared the mentality—entrepreneurial, curious, ready for a new option—but not the demographic.
That one enrollee broadened our messaging and showed us a larger market we would have filtered out.
The Four Mentalities We Actually Target
Here is the framework we use at JTCM. Four segments, defined by what they believe and struggle with—not by age or industry label.
Segment | Who they are | Core pain | What they value | What they're afraid of |
1. The Slasher | Freelancers, side-hustlers, multi-passionate professionals | "I have skills but no clear positioning, so I compete on price" | Autonomy, creative control, building something of their own | Staying invisible and interchangeable forever |
2. The B2B Founder | Owner-led teams, founder-led businesses | "We publish consistently but the enquiries aren't coming" | Clarity, credibility, a system that doesn't depend on heroics | Being seen as just another vendor |
3. The High-Growth Startup | Scaleups, venture-backed teams | "We have ambition and a great product, but no in-house marketing expertise" | Speed, strategic thinking, fractional senior support | Wasting runway on marketing that doesn't convert |
4. The Regulated Enterprise Team | Healthcare, industrial, B2B tech, compliance-heavy industries | "Marketing is slow because every message needs approval" | Reliability, sector fluency, proof that you understand their constra |
Each segment can include people of any age, gender, or location. The mentality is the segment.
By targeting mentalities, you do not have to break your audiences into age groups and try to tailor make content that way. Indeed, there might be variations in hooks, depending on the status of your audiences, but the bulk of the content should be a one-size-fit-all situation because it's tapping into a mentality rather than form-filling facts of your target audiences.
The content you end up with becomes:
Truly relatable;
Representative of a lifestyle, not just an item;
Connects people into a "tribe" despite of their difference in age, gender, sex, etc.
"Gaming (as in playing video games) is a good example. In the 1980s, video game playing was almost exclusively the province of adolescent boys. But as gaming has evolved, not only have more teen boys been sucked in, but the original boys aged into middle-aged gamers. And girls got in on the action as well (not without some cultural controversy, but that’s a whole other story). The net impact is that if a game developer company in 2018 assumes that the primary target of the game is going to be teen boys, the company may be unwittingly locking themselves out of a much larger market, because teen boys no longer “define” the gaming market."
- Nikki Baird, Tribal Marketing And The Need For A Radical Redefinition Of Brand, Forbes
How Do You Find Your Audience's Mentalities?
You research seven dimensions. We've applied each to one of our segments so you can see how it works in practice.
1. Pain points
What do they struggle with? Read the questions they ask in forums, the comments on industry content, and the searches Google suggests.
Example (B2B Founder): The recurring pain is not "we need more content." It's "we publish consistently and nothing converts." That pain points to positioning, not volume.
2. Values
What do they believe in? Look at the content they engage with and the people they follow.
Example (Slasher): They value autonomy and creative control. They are suspicious of hustle culture and "scale at all costs" messaging. Content that respects their time and intelligence outperforms content that promises overnight success.
3. Goals
What are they trying to achieve? Cross-reference their role with industry forecasts and success stories.
Example (High-Growth Startup): The goal is not "more brand awareness." It is "a marketing engine that survives the next funding round." Content should speak to durability, not vanity.
4. Sources of information
Where do they go to learn? Check platform demographics, keyword conversations, and the pages they follow.
Example (Regulated Enterprise Team): They read peer case studies, compliance updates, and industry reports—not trend-chasing LinkedIn posts. Meet them where they already trust information.
5. Objections
What do they say no to, and why? Read your competitors' one-star reviews and ask yourself what repels you as a buyer.
Example (B2B Founder): They object to agencies that promise reach but can't explain cost per lead. The objection is not price. It's the fear of paying for activity that doesn't tie to revenue.
6. Personality traits
What kind of person are they? Build a mental picture from recurring traits in your research. Writing to one specific person is more powerful than writing to a crowd.
Example (Slasher): Resourceful, sceptical of hype, time-poor, and allergic to being sold to. They respond to frameworks, not motivational quotes.
7. Brands they support
Who do they already trust? A person who buys Patagonia is not the same mentality as a person who buys fast fashion. Brand affinity is a proxy for values.
Example (Regulated Enterprise Team): They trust established, low-risk brands. If your content looks experimental or unvetted, you lose them before the first call.
How Do You Write Content for Each Mentality?
Once you know the mentality, the messaging becomes obvious.
Segment | What to lead with | What to avoid |
Slasher | "Stop competing on price. Start positioning on expertise." | Hustle culture, "10x your income" promises |
B2B Founder | "You don't have a content problem. You have a positioning problem." | Generic tips that could apply to anyone |
High-Growth Startup | "Senior marketing leadership without the full-time hire." | Long-winded brand-building talk with no pipeline metric |
Regulated Enterprise Team | "Sector-fluent content that clears compliance, not just creativity." | Edgy, unvetted, or trend-led messaging |
The hook changes by segment. The core offer doesn't.
The Bottom Line
Demographics tell you who is in the room. Mentalities tell you what they will do next.
Stop asking "what age is my audience?" Start asking "what do they believe, what are they afraid of, and what would make them choose me over the cheaper option?" That is where targeting actually happens.
If you want help defining your own mentality segments and building content around them, book a free 30-minute strategy call.
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