Generational Marketing and How to Target Your Audience

In the past, marketing used to target everyone equally. If you were old enough to be a consumer, you would most likely be lumped with other people that greatly differed from you. Modern marketing has shown us that it no longer works to ignore someone’s age, and in fact, could serve as a large detriment to your efforts.

There are currently six separate generations alive on this planet:

• GI Generation born 1901-1926
• Mature/Silents born 1927-1945
• Baby Boomers born 1946-1964
• Generation X born 1965-1980
• Millennials (Gen Y) born 1981-2000
• Generation Z born after 2001

Would it make sense to assume all these people think the same? Additionally, they don’t all serve proportionally in the workplace. In fact, by 2025, millennials will account for 75% of the global market. How could you possibly ignore them now? Therefore, to segment and market to the masses, you must first understand what generational marketing is and how it can best serve your strategies.

What is Generational Marketing?

This process is defined as a marketing strategy that recognizes different generations as archetypes; but extremely unique in each context. Besides marketing, this can also extend to things like product development, customer relations, and sales.

Generational marketing is simply a means of segmenting your audience into easily digestible groups where you can perform niche strategies. So, for instance, you wouldn’t create the same Facebook ad for a 65-year-old that you would for a millennial. Why would you? The 65-year-old may not even have a Facebook account. You get the idea.

Targeting Your Audience

The first step to segmenting your audience is to understand each generation a tad better. According to research by Pew, even the amount of time you are able to market to generations can differ. For example:

• Ages 18-29 use social media 86% of the time.
• Ages 30-49 use social media 80% of the time.
• Ages 50-64 use social media 64% of the time.
• Ages 65+ use social media 34% of the time.

You may also have a product or service that clearly defines the generation you should target. Never assume. You could be missing out on a large portion of your people just because you think purple hairbands will only interest little girls. So many trends that have taken off, have come from people who thought their audience was someone else.

If you are unsure of your customer base, you can always write some creative content and A/B test it across channels. Perhaps your customers lie on Pinterest and you have been posting to Facebook all along. Each platform attracts their own type of age group. LinkedIn has a much older demographic than Snapchat.

Also, consider the type of content. Older generations will typically take the time to read long-form content while millennials prefer a 30-second video. You may have the right audience but have simply been feeding them the wrong content.

Ultimately, do your research. Every generation has certain things that define them, but people will always surprise you too. Test the waters and you might find your product or service is marketable to multiple generations. Now that’s a win-win for all.