They’re the two biggest generations in our lifetime — in fact, millennials just passed baby boomers as the largest living generation, according to The Washington Post. These groups are too big to ignore when it comes to your digital marketing strategy. Generational marketing is one way to reach specific prospects and buyers — but can you market to both at the same time? While the same ads and social media platforms won’t work for both groups, you can take steps to consolidate your efforts and make parts of your strategy work twice as hard to reach both millennials and baby boomers.
Optimize your Website for Everyone
Your online marketing strategy has one primary goal, which is getting prospects to your site and into your sales funnel. A great website will convert your visitors into buyers, no matter where they came from. Create a site for lead generation that features your branding, is fully optimized for mobile and has a high level of readability — and both generations will be happy to engage and interact with your brand.
Use Separate Landing Pages
You can have multiple landing pages designed to appeal to different customers, so try creating one that reaches baby boomers and another that resonates with millennials. This is simply a matter of making some adjustments to copy and images that will appeal to each targeted group. Direct your prospects to the right landing page based on the social media ad or other digital marketing channel they have come from.
Find Common Ground for Both Targeted Groups
It’s no secret that millennials love video content, but baby boomers respond to video and images, too. Use this popular medium to capture the attention of both groups and your content will work harder for you. Use a single video for both groups or tweak the script and images slightly to appeal to each generation in separate content.
Segment your Email List
When it comes to email marketing, you can filter and segment your email list by location, past purchases, open rates and more. Try designating email lists by generation to help ensure you get the right offers in front of the right group of prospective customers or clients. This way, you’ll be able to target your best audience for your products or services.
Focus on Connections
Studies reveal that a whopping 84% of tech savvy millennials don’t trust advertisements. It’s just a matter of time before prospective customers and clients from the baby boomer older generation grow weary of ads, as well. Focus your efforts on forging relationships online, engaging on preferred social media platforms, and making a personal connection with folks. Don’t focus on running easily ignored ads and avoiding the comments and interactions.
Social Media isn’t One-Size-Fits-All
These distinctly different target groups have opposing preferences when it comes to social media. Millennials tend to use Snapchat, Instagram and other visual channels on mobile devices the most — while older generations and baby boomers prefer Facebook and LinkedIn. Make sure to stay up-to-date with which platforms are most popular with each generation as you design content for your digital media.
Generating Targeted Marketing Content
Generational marketing can have a significant impact on your success and your conversion rates, whether you are targeting millennials, baby boomers or both. Taking the time to design a plan that reaches both of these huge groups will allow you to scale your online marketing efforts in the right direction for success. Not sure how to reach one group or the other? We can help! Be sure to reach out to our StratGrow team to see true results with our help.