Are we better off or worse off? Do we have more jobs or fewer jobs? It depends who you listen to. Westminster politicians are keen to tell us how we’re doing and how we feel as they prepare for what’s been widely touted as the Living Standards Election. And with the cost of living and the price of our baskets of goods high on the political agenda, it seems appropriate that political parties are increasingly turning to the marketing techniques of the supermarkets in their campaigning.

In the US, where data-protection rules are less stringent than they are in the UK, campaigners for Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election were able to target individual swing voters on specific streets with particular messages. Keen to ape this more targeted approach, parties in the UK are turning to segmentation techniques used by Tesco and others to profile the electorate and present demographic chunks of it with appropriate information. Polling company Populus has divided the electorate into six groups according to attitudes and outlook. The Conservatives have done their own breakdown, with eight identifiable groups, and Labour is taking a similar approach.

This more scientific methodology has to be a step up from the traditional practice of segmenting voters on the basis of past voting behaviour and then making sure your lot turn out. Voters are less tribal these days, and the crude approach of old would now miss a host of swing voters who decide elections in marginal constituencies. But good segmentation requires good data – and is only one device in the political toolbox.

Tesco has been building detailed individual profiles of its customers for 20 years. One third of British people have Tesco loyalty cards, and feed their shopping data into Tesco’s supercomputer with every weekly shop. Political parties find out what people bought perhaps once a year – when they vote – and the evidence is then reported rather than actual. The way individuals voted is between them and the ballot box. But just as Tesco has sophisticated systems to target the catchments of individual stores, political parties need to map local differences at constituency level against the broad segments set out by central office, if they are to build up a real picture of political attitudes and concerns.

The nature of the segmentation is critical too. Political models tend to be attitudinal: people within certain groupings are thought to feel certain ways about things. But attitude is not behaviour. Political strategists also have to consider wider impacts on behaviour such as habit, the behaviour of others within their social group – or simpler, brass-tacks issues such as whether they can actually recall specific candidates.

While segmentation is a sharper tool than blanket messaging, it’s still a blunt instrument when compared with the latest techniques employed by retailers in the realm of social media. Successful consumer brands are building relationships with their customers by engaging in individual conversations. Broadcast monologue begone – this is real dialogue, and it is building committed relationships. In time, as the digital revolution brings more and more people under its wing, it will be the way that all electioneering is conducted. But for now, in a time when those most inclined to vote tend to be older people who adopt new technologies later, the practical route to dialogue and voter understanding is rather less sophisticated: Knocking on doors, shaking hands and, if they know what’s good for them, listening.