How to market towards the different generations

As much as we all want to believe that “people are people” and “we all bleed red”, in the marketing world, this isn’t true. You need to be marketing differently to different groups of people. And how do you separate groups of different people? Start with their ages. Start with their generation.

What are the generations?

The three most spoken-about generations are Gen Z, Millennials and Boomers. Let’s learn a little more about them and define the true generational gap.

Generations are used to group together people from a similar time period who experience similar socio-cultural and historical events. This can include wars, the rise of the internet and social media, popular parenting styles and fashion.

The exact years between generations are often debated, but these years are the most commonly accepted.

Generation Alpha: Born in 2013–2025

Generation Z: Born in 1997–2012

Generation Y (Millennials): Born in 1981–1996

Generation X: Born in 1965–1980

Baby Boomers (Boomers): Born in 1946–1964

Silent Generation: Born in 1928–1945

What are generational differences?

As previously mentioned, generations are divided based on significant events that occurred during that time period. This means that (in theory) most people of a certain generation will remember and understand the impacts of those events. For example, the rise of social media for Gen Z or the post-war effects for Baby Boomers.

What speaks to each generation and how should you speak to them?

Generation Alpha: Gen Alpha have grown up with the internet — they have had iPad’s thrust into their baby arms before they could even sit up, watching hours of Coco Melon and are (in my opinion) addicted to stimulation. Seriously, google “iPad kid meme”. They aren’t old enough to purchase yet (the oldest is nine years old), so don’t stress about marketing to them, market towards their parents.

Generation Z: Gen Z have also grown up with the internet — but to a much lesser extent that Generation Alpha. The oldest Gen Z’s are graduating, getting married and starting families. They make up approximately 32% of the global population and around 40% of global consumers (Source). So yeah, they are pretty important to market towards.

Gen Z are extremely educated and likely won’t fall for online scams or traditional marketing tactics. They can pick apart urgency (“Buy now!”,) celebrity endorsements (See the Snoop Dogg ad for Menulog) and many other older marketing forms. What they respond to most is social proof. Not from celebrities or influencers (although that can be effective), but from people similar to them. They like reviews from real people, especially in video form via TikTok (User generated content [UGC], Source). Digital marketing will most likely find them the easiest, especially on social media and through short-form video marketing (Source) — that’s where they spend most of their time. Gen Z make searches on TikTok (Source), so don’t forget to consider it in your marketing strategy.

Generation Y/Millennials: Gen Y can also be sceptical of marketing and strongly dislike traditional outbound marketing, such as telephone sales (Source). Similar to Gen Z, they spend a lot of time online and resonate most with digital marketing, however they do not trust social proof as much as Gen Z. Millennials want to be treated as people and as “more than just a customer” (Source). They like influencer marketing and written reviews as social proof.

Generation X: Generation X are not online as much as the previous generations are in their spare time, but they do enjoy visiting it often. They likely aren’t on TikTok, and spend more of their time on Facebook (Source). Think of those minions memes. Gen X prefer traditional marketing: TV ads, billboards, etc. They often also enjoy rewards and loyalty programs, such as Flybuys and Woolworths Rewards, and cashback apps such as Cash Rewards or Shopback (Source).

Baby Boomers and beyond: Baby Boomers prefer in person shopping to digital marketing and eCommerce, however do not neglect it. They often take advice and reviews from their friends and younger family members. They will also usually spend longer thinking about purchases before buying and compare similar products (Source). Organic search results are used to read reviews and comparisons (don’t neglect SEO!). And never, ever, say they are “old” or make them seem elderly in any text or visuals.

How do you effectively market towards the different generations?

Simple — use buyer personas! Buyer personas are detailed descriptions of someone who represents your target demographic (Source). They include information such as:

• Age
• Location
• Gender
• Interests
• Challenges
• Income
• Job title, and so on.

Create buyer personas to split up your different target markets and create marketing campaigns that will hit each persona. For example, an email marketing campaign, billboard campaign and TikTok ad should not target the exact same audience (if you have multiple audiences).

Stay tuned for next week’s blog — all about creating and utilising buyer personas.

Thanks for reading!

My name is Emily Bencsics and I am a marketer based in Melbourne, Australia. I have 2+ years of experience in digital marketing, social media marketing, SEO (search engine optimisation) and email marketing.

Check me out on LinkedIn or reach out to me via email at bencsics.emily@gmail.com.