Lose out big time if you do not adopt age-relevant marketing

Age matters! You understand your customers, but are they all the same age? Don’t lose sales by ignoring generational marketing!

What is generational marketing?

It is a marketing approach that uses the likes and dislikes of different generations to effectively “speak to them”. Each age group has some similar and some different expectations of companies they will support. It is what you say to them that will convince them you are the “ONE” for them.

I am sure you have said things like:

Sound familiar?  These are the complaints of each generation! The truth is that each generation, about 15 years apart, is different. This is because their life experience has been different. Not better or worse, just different. How can you compare the life experience of someone born before computers with someone brought up on social media?  

As discussed in our Customer Analysis insights, you must first segment your customers into different groups in order to assess their needs, desires, fears, and frustrations. Once this is done, you should know how to address their expectations to convert them into paying customers. WRONG!

You need to word your solutions to resonate with the generation being addressed. This is the way to personalise your content even further. Most companies have customer groups across all the age segments and must create age-appropriate variations of their content and advertising campaigns.

These are the defined generations:

An Example of Generational Marketing

You sell clothing. You have worked out who your different customers are. Let’s say one group is women. Does age matter? They are all women.

Think of it, would a woman age 60+ be wearing the same revealing clothes she wore before her arms, neck, and cleavage started to show signs of aging? Most would not. Her desire could be to still look hip in clothes that are modern, but cover what she sees as unattractive. Maybe she needs a bit of looseness around the stomach, three-quarter sleeves, a modest neckline.

A woman of 25-40 may not have these issues. She wants hip styles that show off her assets. Maybe shoestring straps, bold cleavage, tight-fitting.

The way you would present your products to these groups must be different. Show that you understand their desires. Present the clothes in different product categories with age-relevant product descriptions.

You would also apply the age-appropriate copy to your marketing campaigns with pictures or videos showing models of the correct age group and how the clothes are styled for them. This makes your advertising believable, relatable, transparent and trustworthy.

Why should generational marketing concern your business?

It will help in two important ways.

Firstly, by knowing the age-related thought processes of each group, you will know how to craft your message to relate to them. This personalisation optimises your message for sales conversion.

Secondly, besides your website, you need to know where to market your products and services. Not all social media channels will be visited by your TARGET age group. You won’t find many Baby Boomers on SnapChat. Some marketing methods apply across all generations like email marketing.

Where do the different age groups hang out on social media?

How do I find out the age of my customers?

A good way to confirm the age groups of your customers is to check on your website’s Google Analytics. You will need to browse to Google Analytics in your web browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox) and then log in with your Gmail account and password. If your webmaster has not set you up on your Google Analytics account, you cannot log in. You will have to ask them to add your Gmail account as a user.

Once on Google Analytics, you can browse to Audience > Demographics > Age to see your age breaks. See the Google Analytics Age Report below:

You can also find out other very valuable information on Google Analytics. There are many options for free training on the web, including from Google themselves. If you do not have Google Analytics, then you will need to rely on your sales department or market research for feedback on your customers’ age groups.

To see which social media platforms are best for other demographics like income, education, country of residence, see Sprout Social’s article.

Wrap Up

To successfully engage potential customers you must first do a full customer analysis to find out who your customers are and what they need to solve, to make their lives better.

Once you have your customer groups, you then need to take some further steps to ensure they engage with you. Establishing the customer’s age group is extremely important as you must couch your message in a way that will resonate with their life experience and expectations.

You also need to decide where you need to spend your advertising budget to get the best results for the age groups you are targeting. They most certainly do not hang out in the same spaces online.

To find out more about the likes and dislikes of your target age groups, read our articles on Baby Boomers (link), Generation X (link), Generation Y – Millennials (link) and Generation Z (link).

Chat with us!

If you have any questions on this topic, please send to bevt@showme.co.za

I will be covering other topics that can help you manage your online marketing, from an overall business perspective. Not fancy complicated explanations, just easy to digest. If you would like to receive similar articles hot off the press to help you with the online world, please subscribe. We won’t send you any rubbish and your information is secure with us.