B2B Marketers – Should Age be Incorporated into the Messaging?

By: Eyeing Marketing B-to-B marketers have always been very conservative and proper when it comes to their communication in their marketing materials.  Not only are they conservative, but they also tend to provide the same messaging to their entire audience – marketing assistants, marketing managers, VPs, and CMOs.  Every marketer has there own reason on why they use the same messaging, but is that the right tactic? Thanks to social media, instant messaging, and text messaging, the way we speak to one another has changed, especially within the 20-30s age groups.  This is why B-to-B marketers should acknowledge the age of their audience in order to determine the appropriate messaging to use for each age group.  Acknowledging age is important because marketers should be able to speak the language that people connect to even if it’s done in a conservative and professional manner.  Times have changed and B-to-B marketers need to adapt to the new world we live in. What do some B-to-B experts think of incorporating age into the messaging? Gary Meyers, President of Hodgson/Meyers, says “age is a difficult demographic to obtain in B2B prospect data, and we would not necessarily assume that job titles align with age. In that case, where we do not have confirmed age demographics, we would target writing and language more to job function.” Bailey Burk, Burk Advertising & Marketing, Inc., says that age doesn’t really matter, it’s the copy that is important. What does Eyeing Marketing think? Ramon Montes, Founder of Eyeing Marketing, says he agrees with Mr. Meyers that age is a difficult demographic to obtain in B-to-B, but believes that marketers can make some assumptions on a particular age group based on title.  For example, you can assume that: Marketing Assistants - age range is between early to mid 20’s. Marketing Managers - age range is late 20’s to 40. VPs and CMOs  - age range is 40 and above. Although, these age groups are assumptions because no one has this type of data, at least it gives B-to-B marketers some direction of how to look at this.  What should you do? Although, B-to-B marketers have never thought about including different messages based on age, it is something that they should consider testing in future promotions.  Remember, it’s all about testing and no one will ever know if this is effective unless people try it.  The only two methods that will allow you conduct this type of test are direct mail and email campaigns.  The reason – marketers have control of their names and can segment their database by titles.  Will incorporating age increase your cost? There are certain ways on how you can incorporate different messages without incurring additional cost.  For example: Direct Mail – In order to avoid creating additional creative and printing, you can create one piece with generic content that applies to everyone and then have the printer insert content (for example, tagline or the first two sentences of the first paragraph, etc) on certain areas of the piece.   Email – Since B-to-B companies use internal resources to create email campaigns, you won’t incur any cost.

2009-06-24T20:03:00Z

2009-06-24 170 true marketing messaging, b2b marketing, b-to-b marketing, messaging ideas, marketing messaging tips By: Eyeing Marketing B-to-B marketers have always been very conservative and proper when it comes to their communication in their marketing materials.  Not only are they conservative, but they also tend to provide the same messaging to their entire audience – marketing assistants, marketing managers, VPs, and CMOs.  Every marketer has there own reason on why they use the same messaging, but is that the right tactic? B2B Marketers – Should Age be Incorporated into the Messaging?

2010-03-11T06:19:47Z

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