Generational Marketing: How to Target Millennials and Gen X

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Generational Marketing: How to Target Millennials and Gen X

Generational Marketing

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As any marketer can confirm, creating a marketing campaign that will make people flock to your brand is incredibly difficult in such a competitive market. It’s not just that your competition might always be a step ahead of you but the customers themselves, being constantly bombarded with information, have started choosing very carefully what they would interact with. 

This is why, to gain competitive advantage, you need to find subtler ways to target your audience more directly and one of the ways to do that is to dive into generational marketing. If your products are best suited for Gen X (everyone born between 1965 and 1980) and Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1991), here are a few tips on how to win them over. 

Leverage on social media

Although none of these two generations was born into social media, they didn’t put up too much fight against their innovativeness and fast-developing pace. At first, the interaction was somewhat timid, until they began learning about the ways to use social networks and before you know it, they were swamping them by creating profiles, groups, posting pictures, sharing opinions, etc. From communicating with your friends and family to using them for work – these generations have followed these changes live.

While Gen X stays predominantly devoted to Facebook, Millennials embraced other social media networks, such as Instagram and Twitter, so perhaps Facebook is your safest bet when it comes to targeting both simultaneously. As for the format, both Millennials and Gen X love their videos, although the latter is a little less keen on live videos so edited videos that tell a story and awake emotional reaction could be a good option to satisfy the needs of both. Just post it and observe the number of comments and followers rise.

Offer them additional benefits

To be honest, this strategy could work on all generations, naturally, if implemented right because sometimes offering gifts to (prospective) customers can seem as though they are committing themselves to purchase something from you. To avoid this feeling, make them earn the rewards, so for instance, come up with a contest, e.g. taking the most creative picture with your product, posting it on social media and tagging your brand, and the image with most likes should win the reward.

Another application of this strategy is to also recruit talented individuals to join your workforce based on their passion for your brand and the creativity they exhibited in the competition. When it comes to attracting Gen X and Millennial employees, you should also consider offering healthcare benefits because these busy generations care deeply about their health and would love to have the freedom of scheduling checkups at their convenience. You can look into different options and enroll for private health insurance quotes online to see what would suit both the employees and your budget. If you are on the lookout for employees, this strategy can get you both new customers and workers.

Give e-mail marketing a try

E-mail marketing may sound like a strategy better suited for Baby Boomers (those born approximately between the 40s and 60s), however, if done properly, it works for both Gen X and Millennials, with Gen X being a bit more on board with them of the two. One element that would make any e-mail campaign directed at them successful is geo-targeting which means that you could send them special offers related to events and holidays taking place in their city or state and this kind of personalized approach will strike a chord with both.

Another trick that is good to have up your sleeve is to be mindful of the timing. Both of these generations are busy during the day and if you send them an email during work, chances are that they will forget to take a look at it. Unlike the younger generations who react instantly on any communication attempt, Gen X and Millennials exert control over their usage of technology, no matter how tech-savvy they are (this especially applies to Millennials). This means that to get them both, it’s best to send your special-offer e-mails in the evening time, preferably between 8 pm and 10 pm.

Respond to reviews

Both Gen X and Millennials thoroughly enjoy airing their opinions and that is exactly the reason for their involvement in social media. They sometimes consider it their civic duty to point out the rights and wrongs and to react to injustice. This is why transparency is crucial for them and therefore should be to you. What’s important is to respond to both positive and negative comments and reviews on your website and social media profiles, and delete only comments which are offensive to other customers. 

This transparency will not only get you their loyalty but also vital pieces of information regarding the things that could be improved. They are the ones that will point out details that you didn’t notice, such as a glitch in the check-out process, a mistake in the product description, etc. But most importantly, you mustn’t forget to thank them for pointing out such things or omit to show your appreciation in some way, especially if they helped you regarding an important issue. In that case, you might consider sending them a gift.

Wrapping up

Gen X and Millennials are mostly comprised of employed adults who love being online but also value their offline detox. They speak against corruption, pollution, poverty, and being very vocal, you need to respond to any complaint they might have. With a carefully thought out marketing strategy, you will surely get them to interact with your brand.

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Written by Jacob Wilson

Jacob Wilson is a business consultant, and an organizational psychologist, based in Brisbane. Passionate about marketing, social networks, and business in general. In his spare time, he writes a lot about new business strategies and digital marketing for Bizzmarkblog.com.

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