Marketing professionals today face a steep learning curve; this is particularly true if those professional have been in the business for a number of years. Although experience has historically been a huge boon to employees, in the modern marketing industry, those “tried and true” methods of doing business are often no longer effective. Today’s generation of consumers, or the Y Generation, don’t view purchases the same way that their parents did. Their opinion of life, the impulses that spur expenditures, and the way that they view big business are dramatically different from previous generations’. How can marketing companies adjust for this? How can they measure the value of digital marketing endeavors?
Identify Specific Demographics
The first step is to recognize how specific demographics, such as Gen Y, operate. For example, with the realization that there are currently 80 million members of Generation Y (sometimes called millennials) in the United States, marketing professionals should be aware that this group makes up a very large percentage of consumers. The importance of advertising to this segment is clear, but the challenges of doing so are significant:
40% of this group don’t trust big business
The majority of millennials choose businesses that establish a personal or social connection
Most younger consumers expect to have an outlet for sharing their opinions publically
Gen Y members use social networking to stay apprised of brand popularity
Nearly half of this group is making purchases with smartphone technology
It is significant to note that this group of consumers is more likely to make purchases based on what brands “believe in” and how those brands take action regarding those beliefs.
Learn How to Motivate Purchases
The next step is to recognize the most effective methods of motivating your target market, such as Gen Y, to make purchases. For example, society today spends more time online than with any other type of media and much of that time is spent on mobile devices. Naturally, much of the time spent on those devices is spent in apps. This affinity for mobile apps has spurred new methods of measuring the effectiveness of marketing endeavors. App analytics and cross-channel attribution are a couple of examples.
Update Marketing Tactics
Naturally, the next step is to research and determine which of these measurement tools are the most effective. Upsight’s analytics, for example measures the effectiveness of an app in marketing would take a look at where users come from, how many of them felt “happy” about their first encounter with the app, the rate of retention and referrals, and how this information could be used to create revenue. Cross-channeling attribution takes a look at multiple marketing factors and how they influence the consumer on an individual and combined basis. For example, the purchasing habits of Gen Y may be influenced by the weather as well as by their exposure to a social media ad. The trick is to determine how those multiple influences affect and are affected by each other.
Measure the Effectiveness of Marketing Tools
Finally, marketing professionals and business administrators must always be aware of the effectiveness of their methods. Brands today are in the process of increasing the amount of spending on marketing analytics. Marketing firms are under pressure to show that their work is productive and valuable. Identifying patterns among current trends are the focus of modern technology. How far along have your methods come? Are you using modern tools to measure the effectiveness of your marketing tactics?