In the information age, content marketing can be a challenge. There are so many options out there that it may seem overwhelming to choose the best channels and media to personalize messages for your audience.
It doesn’t have to be that tough, though. Automating generational marketing can help you tailor your tactics and content for specific audiences without a lot of backbreaking work. With just a little prep, you can choose the best tools to help you reach your target in a way that engages their unique interests, and starts a dialogue. First, you need to understand how generational marketing works and how to automate it.
In This Article:
What is Generational Marketing?
Before writing any content, we need to understand the various audiences who use our products and services. Generational marketing looks at the age of buyers as an audience segmentation dimension. People born in the same generation tend to have common values and interests and often have similar ways of engaging with the world. This includes how they live online.
You can harness this information to learn what products and services your audience wants, and develop unique content marketing strategies and messaging for each age group. For example:
- Generation Z consumers never knew a world without tech, and that is key to their buying habits. They shop based on recommendations they find on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
- Millennials, or Generation Y, read online reviews before making a purchase. They have tighter budgets and prefer discounts or loyalty programs.
- Generation X tends to be brand-loyal. Believe it or not, they still respond to traditional media, including direct mail and TV ads.
- Baby boomers often shop online. They prefer content that is more tailored directly to their interests.
If you’re looking for proven ways to meet your marketing goals, taking a generational marketing approach is a smart strategy. But this begs the question… Can any of this be automated?
The Role of Automation in Generational Marketing
With all the areas to consider in your content marketing plan, automation can take on an increasing number of time-consuming tasks. Some ways you can automate your generational marketing efforts include:
- Use email automation to segment your audience by generation. Your newsletter service can help you determine these demographics. Personalization is an important tool to boost those open rates, so customize content accordingly.
- Artificial intelligence (AI) can help you build leads. Lead scoring and qualification are two AI tools that can help you acquire the best results for creating prospects and new customers. It analyzes the data quickly, so you don’t have to spend hours mucking through it yourself.
- Automated data processing tools can help you predict what will appeal to each generation. Shopping and content habits are quickly processed to help you discover what works best to reach each client or prospect.
- Because each generational group prefers a different social media platform, marketing can be complicated. Automation allows you to segment groups and track what works and what doesn’t so you’re not overwhelmed when modifying content strategies.
- AI can help you generate content for your audience. You can use these tools to nudge creativity by asking for lists of topic ideas, outlines, titles, and headings, SEO, or rough drafts that target each generation.
Whatever AI or automation tools you use, never forget that nothing replaces that human touch. Bot-generated writing may be too impersonal or too formal. People can often detect machine-written copy, so make sure your team is adding their own flair to content before delivering it.
Identifying Your Generational Markets With Automation
AI can help you identify and understand your audience, allowing you to design customer personas for each generation. When creating avatars, don’t assume habits by age. Generational marketing is not about creating stereotypes, but about finessing your message to best reach and fit the audience.
You can also use AI-powered tools to further identify your target audience by plugging in data sources that house current customers’ and subscriber data. These tools help you examine the demographics and buying habits of those you already serve, as well as responses to content for all followers. You can also survey followers to better understand their needs. Need a template for that?
Marketing is about reaching someone on an emotional level and emotion analytics, a new use of AI, drives home how important it is to care for the needs of your audience. This technology gauges the mood of a test group of your audience by watching their facial expressions and body language. For example, tools of this sort can track if your customers smile when they see your product in a video ad.
Although the use of this technology is primarily happening within big brands like Netflix and Amazon, the tech’s usage and accessibility is growing rapidly. As emotion analytics apps become more accessible, marketers will be presented with even more data on their audience. Automation is invaluable in sorting through this data to serve the ideal persona for different generations, so use the tools you have at your disposal now. Your future self will thank you.
How To Best Serve Your Generational Markets with Automation
Before adding or changing your automation strategies, take stock of your current content marketing efforts and workflow. Have your team review your systems to find where there are mistakes, gaps, or missteps. Error correction is important, but it’s key to understanding failures like social media content with little engagement.
Next, choose workflow management tools that help your team work together to better automate generational marketing content. Data gathered from AI, such as demographics and topics, should be automated with software that lets your team work together more efficiently. Draw up a workflow plan for generational content creation, including content production, approval, and delivery. Then select your software system.
As you choose tools, beware of a new marketing trend, AI washing. It’s reminiscent of greenwashing, a term used when companies make false claims about employing eco-friendly practices. Similarly, AI washing occurs when companies claim to use AI but don’t, or they misrepresent how they are actually employing AI to sell you a product.
You can avoid AI washing by using companies that have a good rating from Capterra, G2 Crowd, or other business review sites. Review the website or speak to a representative and ask what AI they are using and how. If they give you a lot of official-sounding words but no details, it’s probably not a product you want to use. AI is no substitute for seasoned marketers and creatives who know your product and markets, so if they claim they can replace your marketing department, move on to another option.
To stay front and center with your audience, generational content marketing is a must. Automation and AI can speed up tasks, freeing your team to do what they do best: create effective copy that engages your audience. Staying current with these trends will help your company stay on top.
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