Generational Communication of Your Marketing Message

During The Small Business Breakthrough Bootcamp we sometimes

teach a section called Generational Communication of Your Marketing Message. The short version of that is if you are selling to grandmother and her grand kid, you have to talk to them differently. And you must use different tools to speak to them if you are going to be successful in getting your marketing message across.

While I was discussing “Generational Communication of Your Marketing Message,” I noticed that in the room I had a 70-year-old woman, a 59-year-old mom of two, a 44-year-old male personal trainer and a set of 16-year-old twin brothers. I instantly called a classroom audible and asked them to come to the front of the room to talk about how they receive different types of messages, from advertising to the news.

Jaws dropped when our 16-year-old guest said, among other things that he has never SEEN both a fax machine and a rotary phone. At the other end of the spectrum, our oldest attendee remembered when hand writing letters to friends, family and companies when you were disappointed with their service was common. For her 78 RPM albums were common. For our 59-year-old it was 45s, for the trainer, 33s were common and our 16-year-old gets all his music in MP3 format.

This chart will explain a lot about generational communication of your marketing message. Use it when trying to put together your messages.

How you change the generational communication of your marketing message to different target markets depends on what you are selling. If you are trying to sell a product on an impulse, don’t message someone born in the middle of the last century. They want to keep their cash, compared to Gen Yers who are more apt to not save as much paper money. For them it’s all about electronic transfers using their mobile device.

Are you using music in your background? Use music that your target market will remember and appreciate hearing, and therefore will listen to your ad. Audio musical messages are almost as powerful as the power of scent.  Think about this for a moment. There are probably a few songs that bring you instantly back to the summer you first fell in love. OK, so now you hear them in elevators or the oldies station, but they bring you right back.

If you want to sell to younger consumers, take to the social media “airwaves” with as many testimonials as you can generate because that is where those generations are hanging out. You want them to try and write reviews about your products and post them on their Instagram or TikTok pages. You won’t catch them on Facebook… when their parents started posting pictures of them when they were 5 and “friending” all their friends, they took off. Facebook is now far more the domain of Baby Boomers. Baby Boomers who own cats.

Here is an important note if you are selling B2B and professionals.  Your LinkedIn page is vital. That platform has invested untold millions of dollars to become known as a data base of professionals instead of a place to find a job.

Here is the biggest take away from this blog – the Rule for Generational Communication of Your Marketing Message is that you have to change the content and location you place your messages to reach them. You cannot use one message for each generation that you are speaking to.

Would you like some training on working with different generational communication of your marketing message? We would like to offer you a Free Marketing Consultation. Most small business owners, just like you, that take advantage of this conversation, report back that their 30-minute success call was worth at least $10,000 in increased sales and savings to their bottom line. Let’s begin our conversation by increasing your profits. Go now to www.FreeMarketingConsultation.com or call us at 800-705-4265, and we will talk soon.