In the world of business it’s easy to lose inter-generational communication, a fact that seriously hurts your ability to reach each different generation of consumers. So before you try to market your next project, keep these simple tips in mind.
Marketing 101: Know who you want to sell too! Seems like a no-brainer, right? Before you show off your new product, narrow your target audience. In marketing speak, we call this a “persona.” Essentially, it’s the demographics of your buyer. A surprising amount of companies don’t seem to take the culture of the Millennials into account in their marketing techniques. Once you know who you are selling to, saying things they can relate to, in a way that they can understand, is critical.
The Millennials are different from previous generations. They’ve grown up far more casually than their elders, and they expect to promote their individuality and are completely unafraid of delving publicly into the more taboo aspects of society that older generations avoid. Let’s look at a firm that is responding to this buyer with “persona-appropriate” images and language.
Exhibit A: McDonalds
Let’s get past your personal opinion of the food and analyze how they approach marketing now as opposed to a few years ago. McDonalds has seriously stepped up their game, moving from focusing their efforts on children to the new era of young adults that are in the best financial situation to buy their products. Knowing full well the Millennial attraction to risqué advertising techniques, McDonalds has supplied in kind.
In this photo McDonalds uses all the right triggers to market to their most likely customers. They emphasize their product, but also include a Millennial aged man and personal pronouns emphasizing their well-known “Dollar Menu” slogan. While these techniques are somewhat more conventional, the addition of the sexual pun and provocative facial expression capitalizes on the Millennial desire to approach the taboo aspects of current culture.
This new approach has worked out well for the company, which had previously been in decline due to negative stigmas involving the quality of its food. It quite handily turned around its losses, and is projected to grow by 4.5% in 2016!
So what did McDonalds teach us? First and foremost, understand who it is you’re trying to target in your marketing campaign. Nowadays this almost always includes Millennials if you are working in the tech field. Taking into account the triggers for your audience is always important too. Like McDonalds did, approaching your audiences sense of humor and preference for the more taboo garners significantly more of their attention. Sticking to these basic tenants will help you market far more effectively to your next potential customer.
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