How to Entice different Generations to Your offer!

In the last blog post I talked about some key elements of an effective Email Marketing Offer.  Today the focus will be on how to establish an enticing offer by understanding your “target audience”.

There are a couple of things to consider when putting your offer in place.  One important area often overlooked is who is your target audience.  Your target audience is the demographics/generation of individuals you are trying to attract to your practice.  Or your target audience may be the demographics/generation of individuals you are trying to attract to a particular service or product.  Spending time identifying the “who” can have a huge impact on the success of an offer.

Marketing to the generations is becoming critical.  Today there are 6 identified generation types that companies have to consider when building a marketing platform.  When looking at generation marketing you will need to consider the time in which the group grew up in, the way they make decisions and the things that are important to them.

Let’s look at a few examples of how to build an offer based on generation marketing.

Teeth Whitening – Before making a decision on the actual offer, ask yourself “who is likely to be interested?”  If you identify that your demographics is individuals over 50, then you want your offer to reflect what is important to them. This age group is identified as the “Baby Boomers” born between 1946-1964. This generation looks for quick fixes, instant improvement, anti-aging, health, energy and wellness.  So to get this group interested use words that will have an effect.

“Immediately look 10 years younger.”

“Look 10 years younger in just 30 minutes.”

“Does your smile showing how vibrant you are?”

“Act now…..”

Although this group is cost conscious, if you can build value and offer a superior product this group will be less price sensitive.  Make sure you talk about your expertise, if your practice is the only one offering a certain product, process, etc., make sure you talk about it. One way to do this is to have them “learn more” by hitting a button on your email campaign that will direct them to your website section covering the product or service. Use simple facts and impactful statements to get your message across.

Baby Boomers also want to feel part of the solution, thrive on public recognition, building relationships and personal gratification.  This is a great group to ask for referrals from, hold an open house or mini-educational sessions.  Bringing this group together often has positive results for future business referrals through word of mouth.

Braces for Teens – You’ve identified your “target audience” as individuals under 18.  This would be Generation Z born after 1994.  This group has been influenced by global and economic diversity, devastation and change.  These teens are more conservative than the generation before them; they embrace traditional beliefs and have a high need to belong.  This generation is smart, expects loyalty, concerned about appearances and wants immediate gratification.  A highly interactive group, they grew up with the Internet which means they are highly visual.

When putting an offer together try and find ways to engage the audience and appeal to their knowledge, appearance and need for technological gadgets.  A great way to influence this group would be to put together an interactive email campaign that might test their knowledge with a weekly quiz question on taking care of your braces.  Ask them questions have them submit the answer and for each right answer they are put in a drawing for an iPad.  Remember we want people to act, so you can tighten up eligibility by indicating they must be a new or existing patient of your practice at the time of the drawing.

This is just a few examples of how taking time to make sure you identify your “target audience” and create offers that will influence them to take action, you immediate increase your email marketing effectiveness.

Remember this blog is interactive, so if you have comments about generation marketing or want to share ideas for improving an offer, take a minute and post your success for your peers to see.  As always, we welcome your input and value our relationship with you.