by admin on February 3, 2009
Engaging and activating Generation Y will take a strategy, patience, creativity and a unique set of tools.
Microsoft’s Small Business Center breaks down some of the difficult questions surrounding reaching and engaging Generation Y consumers through contests, being present and visible in the marketplace and cause-related products and offerings. Outlined below, is a more in-depth view of how your company can better engage Generation Y and Cal Students.
1. Make your products cool for the kids as well as their parents. “Offer pop clothes at good prices with a brand that will appeal to 30- to 50-year old soccer moms and dads but that Gen Y is not loathe to adopting,” Cooper says.
2. Exploit contests and promotions. “Gen Y is unbelievably enthusiastic about winning free concert tickets or cars or ski weekends,” he says. “Marketers need to generate teen excitement with radio and mall tie-ins, advertising, discounting, promotional kiosks — anything that’s cool and has cachet.”
3. Become “hip.” Yes, I’ll explain. It means a combination of location and concept, Cooper says. “You have to be present where teenagers want to spend time, in skateboard parks, at concerts, in malls. Older marketers are not as comfortable doing that.” Concludes Cooper: “You need to balance the benefits of attracting the younger market against the difficulties of embracing alternative business principles.” After that, you need to get a handle on how Gen Y makes buying decisions. Like teens beforethem, Gen Y relies on peer recommendations, says John Burnett, professor of marketing at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. “But they are far more socially conscious than any generation since World War II,” he adds. “They believe in giving, participation in nonprofits, and in donations of time and resources.”
To view the full article, please visit the following link, Microsoft Small Business Center, “Tough customers: how to reach Gen Y”
Source: Microsoft Small Business Center, “Tough customers: how to reach Gen Y” by Joanna L. Krotz
by admin on December 31, 2008
Reaching the Milennial Generation
Cal students born after 1980 are part of a highly-sociable, influential, tech-savvy and achievement-oriented group of consumers referred to as Generation Y or the Millennial Generation. As a generation that has grown up with technology at it’s fingertips, this group demands a dramatically different communication style than that of the Baby Boomers.
An interview by Andrew Tilin of bnet.com, with our very own Haas Business School Admissions Dean, Peter Johnson outlines how he speaks to the Millenial Generation.
BNET: How do millennials first reach out to Haas?
Johnson: They often listen to our podcasts, which we started about three years ago. The idea to create one was suggested by someone in our marketing office. I said, “I can’t imagine anyone listening to this.” But after two weeks, we found out how many people listened, and the figure was almost a thousand. Being a non-millennial and a skeptic, I made our tech verify the number for me three times. When he did, podcasts became an imperative.
BNET: What’s on the podcasts?
Johnson: They’re about the admissions process, financial assistance issues, program content — that kind of stuff. We try to make them conversational. We still regularly get 1,000 unique visitors a month. We also have students writing blogs; the bloggers are given guidelines like “don’t use profanity,” but we don’t censor them, even though I was initially resistant. Now I know it was the right thing to do. If you censor a blog, it sounds like a marketing message, and the millennials can read right through that. We’ll probably be adding video blogs.
BNET: Blogs, video blogs, podcasts — aren’t you going a little overboard? Can’t you just send potential MBA candidates a catalog?
Johnson: It’s not enough to have a printed publication. They’ll never look at that anyway. You can’t use a single information channel with millennials, because that’s not how they gather information. Our solution is to push out our message through more and varied channels.
To view the entire article, please visit the link below.
Source: “How to Speak Millennial” Media Week
