High­ly com­pelling copy — the kind that rat­tles the ques­tions of your audi­ence, and shock­ing­ly, (and instant­ly) gives them the answer — isn’t easy to do. It’s an even greater chal­lenge when you’re tar­get­ing mul­ti­ple gen­er­a­tions at once. In this arti­cle, you’ll learn the three com­po­nents of turn­ing ‘good’ copy into ‘I got­ta buy this’ brand­ing, no mat­ter how old or young your view­ers may be.

First Up: Know the Difference Between X and Y (Even Z!)

While you may know a mil­len­ni­al when you see one, do you know how to reach them in a sen­tence or two? Do you know how to turn a Gen­er­a­tion X view­er (oth­er­wise known as a ‘latchkey kid’) into a devot­ed con­sumer? Don’t sweat it out. Instead, learn the key psy­cho­log­i­cal com­po­nents of what makes them ‘click and buy’ — and then sit back, ride the waves of high sales and repeat:

Gen­er­a­tion X. Gen­er­a­tion X are those who were born between 1966–1976. From no tech­nol­o­gy to high­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed tech­nol­o­gy, they’ve come a long way. How­ev­er, they also tend to get over­whelmed by too much dig­i­tal ‘noise.’ Con­sid­er Gen­er­a­tion X your high­est edu­cat­ed gen­er­a­tion (26 per­cent have a bachelor’s degree, or high­er). Lead them into full-fledged online engage­ment by edu­ca­tion-based prod­ucts, facts or inter­view-type posts.
Gen­er­a­tion Y. Gen­er­a­tion Y, oth­er­wise known as the Mil­len­ni­als, dom­i­nate on social media. Born between 1977–1994 they are career pro­fes­sion­als, many of whom learned in the ear­ly 2000’s how to cre­ate a web­site, sell a prod­uct and mar­ket it to the masses.

Now in their 30’s and 40’s, they are prone to ignor­ing the typ­i­cal mar­ket­ing pitch, and look for com­pelling con­tent, fine-tuned sales fun­nels and impec­ca­ble images to stay engaged. They’ve been in the pres­ence of tech­nol­o­gy since child­hood, and crave a vari­ety of dig­i­tal con­tent, such as ezines, pod­casts, and blog posts. Blast them with a vari­ety of mar­ket­ing con­tent and you’ll keep them engaged and excit­ed for what’s next.

Want to grab hun­dreds (or thou­sands) of leads with­in days and watch your busi­ness sky­rock­et? Give them a free gift (like an ebook or med­i­ta­tion track) in exchange for their email. They want instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion now, and they’ll become a loy­al cus­tomer if you can offer some­thing of high value.

Gen­er­a­tion Z. There isn’t as much mar­ket research for Gen­er­a­tion Z, because they’re the ‘babies’ of all gen­er­a­tions. Born between 1995–2012, they may grow up to be the most tech­no­log­i­cal­ly savvy of any gen­er­a­tion. Chances are, they will be raised to expect diver­si­ty in their class­room (and online learn­ing, such as social media), through inter­ac­tive learn­ing plat­forms (live stream­ing, any­one?). One of the great­est mar­ket­ing tac­tics you can use to reach them as they grow up? Inter­ac­tive webi­na­rs, and eCourse platforms.

Three Techniques to Reach Each Generation of Social Media Instantly

Now that you know what each gen­er­a­tion is about, it’s time to dive head­first into tar­get­ing each gen­er­a­tion on social media—and meet them where they already are. Here they are: three gen­er­a­tions, and three strate­gies that pay off:

Gen­er­a­tion X. The baby boomer gen­er­a­tion is most respon­sive to emails, so use it to your advan­tage! Cre­ate an email mar­ket­ing cam­paign (do this eas­i­ly by using a ser­vice like Awe­ber or MailChimp) and grab their atten­tion with three inspir­ing or infor­ma­tive blog posts a week — sent right to their inbox.

Being the most finan­cial respon­si­bil­i­ties of all gen­er­a­tions, hook their loy­al­ty with online deals, home own­er­ship tips, or ‘free­bies’ (for exam­ple: offer free cus­tomiza­tion on a prod­uct you sell).

Gen­er­a­tion Y. Ah, the mil­len­ni­als. The gen­er­a­tion that makes up for over 70 mil­lion, and the poten­tial to become your tar­get audi­ence, alone. Sharp, smart and inno­v­a­tive, they are thirsty for more knowl­edge constantly.

Accord­ing to The New York Times, over 64 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als would rather make less than $45,000 a year doing what they love than make more mon­ey, doing some­thing they aren’t inspired by.

Cre­ate con­tent that inspires them. Pro­mote a prod­uct that will trig­ger fear­less­ness in them to do what they love, increase their pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, or allow them to instant­ly achieve greater work/life bal­ance. Just make sure it’s 100 per­cent ‘you’. Don’t fake your way to build­ing a brand. Speak, write about, or post videos that are in align­ment with your vision, and that you’re pas­sion­ate about. When you’re ‘you’ and your brand is authen­tic, they’ll beg for more.

Gen­er­a­tion Z. Accord­ing to a study done by Forbes.com, Gen­er­a­tion Z spends 74 per­cent of their time on social media. While they might not be as tech­no­log­i­cal­ly expe­ri­enced as Gen­er­a­tion Y, they’re on social media con­stant­ly — and expect instant con­tact. Cater to your gen­er­a­tion Z audi­ence by devel­op­ing (and main­tain­ing) a strong pres­ence on Snapchat, or with Insta­gram Sto­ries (they respond well to stun­ning visu­als and fun fil­ters!) Kill two birds with one stone by live stream­ing videos on Face­book, and/or week­ly YouTube videos.

Do you know what gen­er­a­tion your audi­ence is com­posed of? Or, is it a com­bi­na­tion X, Y and Z? To know your audi­ence is to com­pel them to fall in love with your brand. Use the above tech­niques and see what works best!

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