Digital Marketing to Generation X, The Forgotten Generation
No matter what your business is selling, the first step in devising a marketing plan is to identify your target demographic. At present, it seems that most strategies in most industries are being designed to attract Millennials. In doing so, businesses that offer professional services or industry expertise all too often overlook the generation that preceded them. Considering the fact that Generation X currently holds the majority of senior and executive level management positions worldwide, such businesses might want to reevaluate their marketing strategy.
The Generation X Buyer Persona
“They know what they want and what they like and most importantly who they are. Recognizing this creates an opportunity for marketers to appeal to this population with a genuine and realistic campaign that Gen Xers can identify with.”
-Joe Stagaman, EVP, Advertising Effectiveness Analytics, Nielsen
In the abstract, Generation X denotes anyone born from the mid-60s until 1980. More specifically, they came of age during a period of rampant inflation and widespread unemployment. Derisively referred to as the MTV Generation, they witnessed the rise of tabloid journalism, the prevalence of mass media and the dawn of the digital era. They have high media literacy and a famously cynical, so generation X advertising and communications often demands wit and sophistication.
While their Baby Boomer parents can be characterised by post-World War II optimism and economic prosperity, Gen Xers were raised on pop culture and reduced supervision owing to the surge in two-income households and divorce rates. As a result, they matured into independent and resourceful adults that were financially responsible and family oriented.
Not as conservative as their parents and not as liberal as their children, the best approach for marketing to generation X is to combine time-tested methods with new age innovation.
The Power of Marketing Automation
Financially speaking, Gen Xers put their families before themselves. Therefore, they’re often more receptive to products and services that can be used by children and teenagers as readily as adults. On average, Gen Xers have accrued more debt than any other generation, so it’s understandable why they’re looking for value as well as practicality. One way to offer them both is with marketing automation.
Digital marketing strategies involve a series of tasks designed to generate leads, convert them into sales and maximise ROI. Manually administering every email, message and post is likely to divert your attention away from other key aspects of your business. Marketing automation can execute that time-consuming work for you across multiple platforms and streamline every facet of your campaign.
Rather than guesstimate what will appeal to Gen Xers, the software identifies the demographic segment most in need of your product or service and allows you to design specific campaigns to draw that target audience in. So whatever it is you’re actively selling, marketing automation will help you pinpoint Gen Xers who are potentially buying.
The thing to keep in mind is that Gen Xers are drawn to facts and figures. They do their research and tend to focus on the existing features and presumed benefits of a given product or service. However, each of them will define value and practicality quite differently and, subsequently, each of them will search for it differently.
In response to this, marketing automation can facilitate keyword research to provide you with specific search data on your target audience. Such data will help you better understand what they’re searching for online, how many of them are searching for it and in what format they want to consume that information.
You can then use this data to devise meta titles and meta descriptions that will resonate with Gen Xers from search engine to search engine. In addition, the data mined by keyword research will also help you create great content for your website, web pages and blog posts.
Upon being drawn to such great content, the marketing automation software catalogues customer interaction with your website’s features and functions. Afterwards, the software knows precisely what actions to trigger and when to trigger them. This allows you to optimise the planning, coordination and measurement of campaigns for your individual clients, both online and offline.
Put the “Social” in Social Media Marketing
It is estimated that 95% of Gen Xers are active on Facebook, 35% use LinkedIn and 25% regularly post on Twitter. While they may not have been raised on social media, studies have shown Gen Xers are quicker to adopt new technologies than Millennials and are more than comfortable shopping online. Suffice it to say, social media marketing offers a unique opportunity to surpass the limitations of traditional marketing when trying to build an audience for your brand.
Such data tells you they’re out there, but simply posting to your social media accounts is not enough to let them know you’re out there, too. So to guarantee you get the most out of your social media marketing campaigns, consider these three things:
Be Personal: Gen Xers are frustrated by what they perceive as a preponderance of marketing strategies aimed at every demographic other than their own. Data collected from marketing automation software will give you an insight into their business needs and ensure personalised messaging addresses them by their name for that extra special touch.
Be Visual: Gen Xers enjoy sharing posts and messages with their family and friends, particularly when they’re accompanied by photos and video content. Try and include one of a customer enjoying your product or using your service. To the skeptical Gen Xer, seeing is believing, and they will feel a deeper connection to your business if you give them the means to do so.
Be Economical: Gen Xers are educated consumers who will scour the depths of the digital domain in search of value. Save them the time by sending them special offers and exclusive opportunities whenever they’re available.
Transparent Content Marketing
Generation X prizes tangible realities over conceptual possibilities. At a point in their lives where their fiscal responsibilities outweigh their wistful aspirations, they are sensible shoppers. They prefer to play it safe and keep it real. So if you want to appeal to their acumen, content marketing strategy is key.
Between their jobs and their families, Gen Xers consider time to be a precious commodity. As children, they bore witness to a pivotal shift in marketing as advertisers sought to appeal to the public’s heart as opposed to their minds. Although the approach was effective, Gen Xers became inured to it following decades of exposure and know when content marketing is trying to manipulate them. Consequently, when trying to stimulate interest in your business, how you present your content is as important as the content itself.
Authenticity should be the cornerstone of any content marketing strategy designed to attract Generation X. They want to be assured, not amazed. Whether through social media, video content or infographics, forego the longwinded messages and dazzling presentations in favor of clear and focused content that connects your business with their concerns about family, retirement and efficiency. And when in doubt, don’t underestimate the power of sentiment.
According to several surveys conducted by Google, Generation X is more nostalgic than any generation before or after it. To them, the movies, commercials and music of their youth is comfort food. You may find evoking fond memories of their yesterday to be as powerful a content marketing strategy as promoting value and utility.
Create and Curate Customer Experiences
Stereotypically, Generation X is said to feel alienated and disenfranchised. The “X’ meant to signify their apparent lack of societal identity. Beyond the stereotype, there’s no question Gen Xers feel marginalised by brands and are especially turned off when they’re made to feel like a number rather than an individual. When you take into account that they spend more on housing, food, entertainment and retail than any other demographic, it’s easy to understand why.
Gen Xers are at the peak of their earning and spending years and have the highest brand loyalty across all generations. But you’ll have to do your part to get their business by making their customer experience with yours as enjoyable as possible. In this sense, it’s about the journey and not the destination.
Your business is only as strong as its weakest link. Well before they make their purchase, Gen Xers hunt for bargains and reference testimonials. They look at photos and compare options. They want to be as satisfied with what they bought as they are with how they bought it.
Perhaps most importantly, Gen Xers want to know they’re being specifically targeted. Which is why the right customer experience strategy can help turn Gen Xers from browsers into clients.
You know they seek value and practicality, so ensure they’re getting them the moment they come into contact with your brand. You know they like facts and figures, so give them plenty of both as soon as they engage your website.
You know they’re pressed for time, so keep your sales pages and order forms as simple as possible. And once your customer experience strategy draws Gen Xers in, take advantage of CRM analytics to build a 360-degree customer view. When you have new products or services to offer, you’ll be able to cater to their individual needs by identifying which ones will benefit from them. Then personalise the contact you initiate to inform them.
Email marketing has proven to be an effective method of reaching Gen Xers. While Millennials perceive email as an antiquated means of communication and Baby Boomers see it as complex, Gen Xers take full advantage of emailing in both their personal and professional lives.
Since it’s something they use seven days a week, mornings, afternoons and nights, email marketing is a great way to enhance your customer experience and grow your brand. But owing to the fact your messages will be mixed in with those from friends and colleagues, be sure to customise your headlines and content using those same CRM analytics.
Don’t Forget the Little Things
Despite being exposed to the digital revolution at a far less impressionable age, nearly 60% of Gen Xers claim to be as tech-savvy as their Millennial counterparts. On average, it’s estimated Gen Xers spend 110 minutes on their mobile phones every day checking social media, reading articles, watching YouTube and patronizing your business... provided it’s optimised for mobile. Failure to check that could be costing you new clients on a daily basis.
72% of Generation X uses the Internet to research their business needs. Hopefully the idea of tens of millions of people perusing your website will motivate you to regularly check it for typos and misinformation. System and software updates can cause any number of problems. Gen Xers tend to be unforgiving of such mistakes and will quickly move on to a competing site.
It takes time to build a client list. One of the ways you can keep it intact is by further availing your business of customer analytics and social media. Use them to track special days in your Gen X customers’ lives like birthdays, holidays, graduations and confirmations. A simple note will suffice, and their sentimental tendencies will guarantee the gesture is not forgotten.
More than the customers you need, Generation X are the educated, empowered and loyal customers you want. To find out how 1827’s team of experienced professionals and dynamic innovators can help you create a marketing strategy and campaign planning that will resonate with them across every digital platform, give us a call today.
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