Introduction:
When promoting live events, one of the simplest ways to better understand your target audience is by identifying and studying their generational cohort(s). It does not matter how large your marketing budget is if you are utilizing the wrong channels and tactics for the identified target generation segments. Each age demographic segment has its own characteristics, tendencies, preferred channels, and ideal marketing methods.
Generational Marketing and Its Use in Promoting Live Events
Generational marketing is a strategy that involves segmenting an audience into groups based on their age or generation and creating unique marketing approaches in a way that reflects their characteristic wants and needs, communication styles, shopping habits, and life stage considerations. These characteristics can include such things as values, preferences, behaviors, communication styles, and technological familiarity.
The first step to promoting live events is to identify who your target audience is for your event. Your event will likely target 1-3 generations, though it will depend on the specifics of your planned event. For example, some concerts or festivals will only appeal to one generation, while others will transcend age groups.
Using age and generational demographics can tell a lot about your target audience. However, it should not be the only basis for determining your event promotion strategy. There is a wide spectrum of audience characteristics that go beyond generational information including psychological variables known as psychographics within each generation. Though they are similar in age, individuals will have diverse values, behavior, and preferences.
Defining Generational Cohorts When Marketing Live Events
Once you understand your target audience for promoting live events, you must consider key characteristics of each segment and determine if generational demographics will be useful to promote your live events.
Segmenting your targeted audience using the characteristics of generational cohorts can be very useful. Generational characteristics can describe their interests and the culture they engage with, politics they were raised with, and economic conditions they have faced. We can start by understanding their lifetime formational events as well as life stage considerations. They will have varying levels of education, household income, financial stability, and life attitude which is reflected in their generational cohort. As a result, each generation will have different media preferences and interactions. They also have distinct purchasing habits. These factors should affect how you market your event to each generation.
Promoting Live Events to Different Generations
Generation Z:
Despite being a younger generation, Gen Z currently make up for 40% of global consumers. These are children and adults aged 12-27 and born between 1997 and 2012. They are currently coming of age and entering the workforce as the most ethnically diverse generation in US history. They have grown up with smartphones, the Internet, and social media. They are accustomed to connectivity, information, and entertainment constantly at their fingertips and have incorporated these technologies deeply into their lifestyles.
Millennials:
Also known as Generation Y, Millennials are currently settling down, having children, and making important purchases. Millennials are adults born between 1981 to 1996, making them currently aged 28-43. They are tech savvy, being the first generation to grow up with technology. They are the generation that has received the most formal education although the recession of 2007-09 resulted in high unemployment and their difficulty in achieving the same milestones and affluence of earlier generations.
Generation X:
Generation X are now 44-59 years old, since they were born 1965-1980. They are settled and are at the height of their careers or in early retirement. The computer revolution transformed their employment, social life, and consumption. As a result, they are avid users of modern technology, with as much usage as Millennials. They tend to use Facebook and Twitter and are more politically involved. Having grown up during a recession, Gen X tend to be more cautious in their purchasing habits. However, they still often make impulsive purchases.
Baby Boomers:
Baby Boomers are about to or already retired, since they are between 60 and 78 and were born from 1946 to 1964. They are named after the boom of births after World War II and compose a longer generation span than most recent ones (18 years). It is one of the only official generations that the US Census Bureau has declared. Baby Boomers are the generation currently with the most discretionary income, making them a key target audience for your next event. When considering their cultural heritage, Baby Boomers were raised during the television boom as well as with the traditional American family ideals in this post-WWII time period. They also still utilize modern technology and social media in their daily life.
Silent Generation:
The oldest generation in this article is the Silent Generation, and they were born between 1928 and 1945, beginning nearly a century ago. This makes them born before or during World War II. Today they are within 79-96 years old, and this generation values stability, intelligence, honesty, and a strong worth ethic. Generally, they are looking for these same values in the brands they support, and want respect from the companies they are marking purchases from.
Promoting Live Events to Each Age Generation
The first step in promoting live events is determining your target audience. If age is a key factor in your marketing strategy you will need to determine the age generation you are marketing to and research some of their key cohort defining characteristics that are important to your target audience. You should look to implement specific features into your marketing strategies. Because each generation and potential segments of it may have unique engagement with various media channels, members of that audience segment will react differently to the same marketing campaign. You will want to alter your marketing tactics and channels utilized depending on which generation and subgroup you are targeting, Otherwise the event promotion will not resonate with that generational segment. Remember that are many differences with regards brand loyalty, social media use, devices used, etc.
Generation Z:
Generation Z highly values brands that advocate for social causes and are environmentally friendly.
They may be more interested in events which make efforts to minimize the environmental impact of live events as well as those that advocate and care for the greater good of the community. Cause marketing is a way to appeal to this generation.
Because they are such frequent users of digital devices, they receive an excessive number of ads on them and they are the biggest users of ad blockers. They follow and trust the opinions of social media influencers. If you know of a celebrity or social media influencer with a large following in you target audience, you should consider using Influencer Marketing to reach Generation Z. You may consider hiring influencers to post short-form videos and pictures in promoting live events such as concerts or festivals.
This generational cohort are avid users of social media, usually spending 1-5 hours daily on those platforms. Reaching them requires a thorough social media campaign across platforms – Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Accordingly, event marketers should adopt a digital-first approach, with a particular focus on integrating interactive marketing tactics such as livestreaming, video marketing, audio marketing, and social media. However, they are less active on Facebook and Snapchat. Gen Z particularly values brands that interact with customers on these accounts, such as rapid responses to questions about your event.
They appreciate ease of use and convenience of using apps. When marketing to Generation Z, if you are organizing a festival, operating a venue or promoting a concert series you should consider using an event app. Here’s a good explanation as to the benefits of using an event app.
One difference from other generations is that Generation Z is not as influenced by venue loyalty programs as other generations.
Millennials:
Perhaps because they were the first generation raised with modern technology, they are technologically very savvy. For promoting live events, Millennials are driven by values and appreciate genuineness, connections and transparency.
Millennials prefer more trustworthy brands. Nonetheless, they agree that advertising should enable creative communications and innovation. Consider incorporating the latest technology into your event. When promoting live events to millennials marketers should consider using interactive ad formats, a robust social media strategy, values-based marketing techniques, and creator marketing to help engage millennial audiences.
They, like Gen Z, highly value corporate social justice and companies that support environmental and social causes. Try partnering with a local charity for your next concert to raise money for their causes. Another example of trustworthy advertising they prefer is word-of-mouth, as well as opinions of social media influencers. This even includes radio advertising, since Millennials are the biggest generation of radio listeners. When marketing to Millennials, the general branding of your event should be transparent and honest. Be sure to monitor your venue or festival’s online reviews on Yelp, TripAdvisor, social media, Google, Trust Pilot, etc.
Generation X:
One of the unique characteristics of Generation X is that they are engaged with both traditional and digital media. They can be reached through the many mediums they engage with. Because they are a more cautious generation, you will want to prioritize consistent branding. You will want to minimize pivots or frequent changes in imagery. Nonetheless, they still value unique branding campaigns, so find a balance in marketing your next event.
They are not as compelled as other generations by innovation and tend to trust word of mouth recommendations. They expect a high level of personalization in advertising. You will want to include reviews and positive testimonials for the performers, your upcoming festival, or venue. You should incentivize referrals through discount codes or sharable coupons for tickets. As a result, Gen X also often uses loyalty programs. When marketing to Generation X, you should also opt for discounts or coupons for your ticketing to incentive purchases. These could be sent via email–one of the best ways to reach this generation–or direct mail.
Baby Boomers:
Baby boomers are more likely to engage with traditional forms of media such as television, radio, and print. They have longer attention spans than younger audiences and are willing to spend time researching products and services.
If you are considering ticketing for your event, ensure you have a physical ticket option. This is the service older generations might be more comfortable with, such as allowing print off, mailed tickets, or access to a box office.
Because of the drastic technological transformations across their lifetime, they may be more resistant to digital channels and prefer traditional modes of promoting live events, such as print, broadcasting, and email marketing. Facebook continues to be their preferred social media platform. They still prefer to use desktop computers to make purchases instead of smart phones. Focus on delivering informative, value-adding content that showcases your event’s value proposition.
Other generations appreciate loyalty programs, but Baby Boomers’ brand loyalty and prioritization of deals make them particularly open to this form of promotion. Even though they are social media users, they tend to prefer quality person-to-person selling.
Silent Generation:
Similar to Baby Boomers, traditional modes of marketing live events are key for this age group. They prefer media that they are most comfortable with. As a result, they also tend to be quite loyal to the brands, websites, media, and venues they engage with.
When marketing your next event to the Silent Generation, you should opt for traditional media channels, such as print/newspaper, direct mail, television, and radio. When marketing your event, your messaging should be relatively simple. Any imagery with your advertising should represent the Silent Generation and their general values of community, respect, and family. These can be taken into consideration also when organizing your event, and you can cater toward block parties, community bonding, and family-friendly multi-generational events.
Conclusion:
Regardless of what generation to which you are promoting live events there are a multitude of considerations to take into mind when developing the event promotion campaign. When marketing to different generations and the marketing segments that make them up, you must reseaech the behavior of and design unique promotion strategies for each individual cohort. Overall, well planned marketing campaigns to using generational segmentation can help individuals within them better understand your event’s brand by using the languages, channels, sales techniques, and communication methods they best understand.
Sources Used:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/01/17/where-millennials-end-and-generation-z-begins/
https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/generational-marketing-tactics
https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2022/08/09/gen-z-stats
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/guides/generational-marketing/
