In my book, Communication Wins, I wrote about audience awareness and personality types. In this blog we’ll take a look at audiences by age group.

Succeeding in any business environment today requires getting the attention of one of the most entrepreneurial and text-friendly generations in history.  They are also the most stressed and distracted demographics ever to exist.  Understanding and developing new marketing strategies that appeal to customers and their personal lifestyle, both in learning and in information gathering, is the key to successfully marketing.  Finding a way to get through all the marketing noise that bombards the average person can be daunting and is more challenging than ever before.  

Who is your current market and why is understanding their information and learning style so important to the success?  They are divided into three groups: Generation X, Generation Y, and Global Tweens.  

Generation X is tech savvy and very skeptical.  They are between the ages of 30 and 50; they are the parents of children ages 8 to 18.  They are adults who want to understand their options.  Generation X is your number 1 target audience for most companies.  Marketing strategies aligned with the lifestyles and technological preferences of this age group are critical to success.

What do we know about Generation X?  We know they surf the web for information on every subject imaginable, including hobbies and specialized medical procedures.  Email, cell phones and text messaging are their primary, if not only, source of communication 24/7.  Digital organizers and recorders keep their busy lives on schedule.  They depend mostly on their friends and family for recommendations when making decisions, purchasing products and buying services.  Generation X women make the majority of buying decisions for the family.  Their purchasing decisions are based on emotion, trust, personal relationships and their own perceived value of return on investment.

Marketing studies show that traditional marketing strategies are relatively ineffective on the Gen X audience.  They retain less than 1% of the marketing messages they encounter on a daily basis and they are very skeptical of information they do retain.  Bottom line: Gen X consumers want verifiable proof of expertise, quality and good customer service with minimum sales hype.

Generation Y is Generation X on steroids.  They’re young, smart, and assuming, often to the point of arrogance.  They want to wear flip flops to work, they listen to iPods at their desk and text message to their friends every waking hour.  They want to work but they don’t want work to be their life.  They feel they are entitled to their parents’ lifestyle but without the hard work and effort it took to get there.  They are a force of as many as 70 million.  Tighten your chinstraps because this generation, ages 16 to 30, is different than any group that has come before, including their parents.

The impact of their personal attitudes and lifestyle will have a huge impact on how products and services are marketed.  Maintaining long term relationships will be very difficult with this ever questioning and fickle generation who has no tolerance for outdated thinking and lack of computer skills.  If you don’t have a good website and an effective online strategy, you are invisible to this group.  

Since childhood they were both pampered and programmed with nonstop activities, meaning they are now both high performance and high maintenance.  Gen Y do the majority of their window shopping online before buying and they are very discriminating.  Don’t be fooled by their casual dress, piercings and tattoos.  This generation appreciates quality.  They are tech savvy and a generation of multi-taskers; they can juggle emails, phone calls and Google searches on their iPhone’s simultaneously.  They would prefer to send a text message than make a cell phone call.  They are more comfortable working virtually (online) than face-to-face, through personal relationships or even on a phone like previous generations.  

For many their favorite pastime is going online to social networks such as YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.  Most spend more time surfing the web and communicating in social networks than they do watching television.  They put a high value on self fulfillment and think nothing of making constant changes in their life to get it.  Building relationships that contain loyalty will be very challenging with Generation Y.
    
The last group is Global Tweens.  They heavily influence the buying decisions of their parents.  Today’s children are increasingly aware and very well informed.  Global Tweens between the ages of 5 and 15 are much more tech savvy than prior generations.  They are the first generation to be totally raised in the digital age of computers, iPods, cell phones, text messaging, gaming, DVDs, and the ever expanding internet.  Most of these kids learn to read on a computer.  Digital technology is second nature to them.

It is easy to underestimate their highly developed preferences and the effect they have on global marketing, and the buying decisions of their parents.  They do not like being treated like the children they are.  These kids are 8 going on 18.  They learn more from interactive educational software than the written text, and they respond to trendy marketing that immediately grabs their attention and gives them something to talk about, photograph or text to their friends since the vast majority have their own cell phones.  

Tech savvy audiences of all ages have shifted their information gathering to the internet and are always on the go, and they look to the internet to quickly research their buying decisions.  They all respond to visual kinesthetic marketing mediums, like video, as one of their favorite forms of communication.  Your website, especially with video, is the first step in emotionally engaging these groups with your personal message.  Your first contact with new customers and clients is no longer a phone call; it is the Internet.  Does your website project your image the way you want it to?  Is your website keyword optimized so prospects can easily find you on Google in your demographic and geographic footprint?  Are you listed on Google Maps in all your surrounding areas?

Digital technology is changing and advancing at lightning speed.  It is difficult to keep up with it all.  Discovering how to synergistically meld your current internal and external marketing strategies under the umbrella of an internet marketing program will save you time, money, and level the playing field among competition if you know how to do it correctly.  No matter how big or small the practice or what your experience level, most websites look the same and deliver the same written message.  In order to stand out you must do or say something different to engage your audience today.  

Without the PR component advertising alone lacks credibility, third party endorsement and the ability to generate that elusive buzz to increase referrals.  Now Web 2.0, the latest in internet technologies, provides the missing link to complete the PR component with many different options available.  With the latest downturn in the country’s economy you can’t afford to lose existing or future customers.  Now is the time to reevaluate and update your current marketing plan to include Web 2.0 internet marketing tactics if you want to set your website apart.  

Don’t be left in the dust wondering what happened when you weren’t paying attention to your online competition.  The most valuable real estate you can own in any business is in your market’s mind.  Communicate with them on their terms in a format they are comfortable using.  It’s all up to you.  Are you going to be a leader on the digital road to success?  Or are you going to join the growing list of companies known as digital road-kill?

Steve

In this two-part series I’ll give you specific ways to find information and inspiration for new video and blog posts. Here are the first six.

1. How do you find anything? If you’re like a billion other people, you “Google” it. Do the same thing for topics you want to shoot a video about or blog about. You can type anything into Google and get more than 1,000,000 results, all pertaining to your topic. Scan through the results until you find something that sparks your imagination.
2. Delicious is one of the post popular sites on the web. Delicious describes itself as the “world’s leading social bookmarking service.” It’s packed full of the most popular bookmarks and blogs on the web as selected by its members. If you want to know what people are talking about, what they’re interested in, then visit Delicious the next time you’re looking for video or blog ideas.
3. Blogs. There are blogs about seemingly everything. I particularly like to read about video production and blogging. I incorporate the tips I pick up into the work I do and, then, if it works well, shoot a short video or write a blog post about my experience.
4. People. I’ve always been a people watcher. At Starbucks, at the mall, at the airport, it doesn’t matter, I watch people because they fascinate me. Observe parents, waiters, firemen practicing their craft long enough and I guarantee you an idea for a video or a blog will pop into your head.
5. Exercise. When I feel like something is brewing inside my head but just doesn’t seem to want to come out, or I find myself not taking decisive action, I take my dog for a long walk. You’ll be surprised how 30-45 minutes of exercise will relax your mind and release your creativity.
6. I have a couple books that list Quotes by topic and by author, there’s also several websites that do the same. Read through the quotes by topic or author and soon you’ll have all the inspiration you need to produce a new video or write an insightful blog post.

That's it for now.

Call if I can be of service.

Steve
800-707-9150

Thank you all for your emails and comments. Here's a consolidated statement of your major point:

• Use the medium (video) to deliver the message!

It's a great point. Instead of putting my top 12 tips into 500+/- words I should have just shot a video. You're right, so that's what I did.

It's rough but I think it gets the message across. What do you think?

Steve
800-707-9150

The eyes have it:
Several of my blog entries have mentioned that reading is out and viewing is in. That’s not surprising since human beings are visual creatures. Approximately 65% of the information we gather comes through our eyes. Our ability to accurately process information declines considerably when we use our other senses. A steak is a steak to my untrained nose, but my entire being prepares for action at the site of a thick Filet Mignon.

Some seeing is better than other seeing. Fewer and fewer people want to gather information through the oftentimes-dry act of reading. More and more people want to gather information through the visually engaging experience of video. They want to be told a story. They want to be given both the information and its contextual meaning in an engaging and entertaining way. For most, movies are preferable to books.

Give the people what they want where they want it:
This is where (online) video excels and the numbers back it up. According to a survey printed on May 12 in eMarketer Daily, 87% of respondents said they will spend more for online video in 2009 than they did in 2008. An astonishing number.


Similarly, MAGNA Global, a division of Interpublic Group, forecast in April 2009 that online video ad revenues in the US will exceed $1.0 billion in 2011.

In the current economy budgets are tight, so marketers must maximize the return on every dollar spent. As such, marketing initiatives need to be extremely targeted and have measurable results that are beyond debate.

This is where offline marketing often falls short and online marketing excels. With offline marketing, management typically relies on estimates and educated guesses to determine results. For example, "our magazine ad was seen by approximately 25,000 people and, based on the magazine’s readership profile, approximately 5,000 of them are people that use our products and have buying authority." That’s not good enough.

Online marketing produces facts: The number of people who saw the ad, how many times each person viewed it, whether they took action – clicked-through -- or whether they made a purchase, signed up for the newsletter, etc., are clearly visible in the data.

Some online marketing initiatives are offered on a performance-based pricing model. That model guarantees marketers are receiving value. A company wants their target group to read a specific message, so it runs a pay-per-click campaign and directs the customer to a customized landing page where a personalized offer is made. Those actions can all be tracked and reported.

With today’s tools, we can tell you who clicked-through, as well as who didn't and when they left the site. Those hard facts provide clear accountability and a feedback loop that can be used to improve future campaigns. It is a virtuous cycle that leads to increased interaction, better customer relationships, and a known return on your investment.

Steve

Viral ads are online promotional campaigns that are so cleverly designed that they spread “like a virus,” quickly and massively, amongst the target consumers and users of the product. Viral Marketing is the creation of those ads - marketing messages.

If done correctly, people will forward the ad to all their "friends" and/or start talking, texting, and emailing about the ad. It is essentially a great piece of PR work.

Today “viral” typically comes in the form of an email or video. In the future, I suspect it will be primarily pictures and video, since those are  the mediums pundits predict will dominate the web in the years ahead.

However, before you tattoo your company logo on your forehead, take a wacky picture of yourself with your new iPhone, and email the photo to everyone you know, it is important to know a few of the basic requirements of a good viral ad.

Specifically:
-    There must be a huge fun (new, unique, interesting or sexy) factor
-    Good writing and imagery are critical
-    It should be easy to forward via email and/or posting
-    The act of forwarding it makes the sender appear cool or in-the-know
-    The sender should expect a reply, such as, “That's cool.”
-    It must be blog-worthy
-    People must drive it because people are credible; corporations are not.

Steve