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Motivation for use of online services

Marketers can also develop 

psychographic segmentations

 which help explain motivation. 

Specialised psychodemographic profiles have been developed for web users. See Box 4.1 for 

an example of this type of segmentation applied to responsiveness to online advertising. 

Which profile do you fit?

The revised Web Motivation Inventory (WMI) identified by Rodgers et al. (2007) is a use-

ful framework for understanding different motivations for using the web. The four motives 

which cut across cultures are: research (information acquisition), communication (socialisa-

tion), surfing (entertainment) and shopping, and these are broken down further below.

1 

Community

● 

Get to know other people

● 

Participate in an online chat

● 

Join a group.