The top business and finance industry audiences are Baby Boomers, Gen X, and Millennials. When marketing to all of these generations, it’s more effective to use different strategies due to their technological and attitude differences. Each generation has grown up around different advancements, technology, and societies which creates a divide between them and the differences between their marketing strategies. 

Baby Boomers

This generation includes people born from 1946 to 1964. Boomers are the wealthiest generation, making them a key target for the business and finance industry because of their potential to be high-sale customers/clients.

Boomer Marketing Characteristics

• Boomers mainly use Facebook and Google to find information.
• This generation is very concerned with privacy and dislikes feeling “tracked.”
• The fine print is usually overlooked, but this generation will be more likely to read it closely. 

Boomer Marketing Strategies 

When marketing to the Baby Boomer generation, it would be most effective to use general wording and not get too personal. Another marketing strategy that would be effective for this generation is relating your advertising to family since this generation usually has kids, grandkids, and often times, great-grandkids. 

If you work in the finance or business industry and are trying to cater to your baby boomer audience, you could create an advertisement that has a picture of a person in their 60s-80s partaking in an activity with a young child (their grandchild or great-grandchild). With it, write a caption for the ad that could say something along the lines of, “Invest your money with us to ensure a bright and comfortable future for your generations to come.” This advertisement would not be personal, but it would relate to them in other ways that it could feel personal while speaking in a more general sense. It also would play into the idea of family which would increase their interest. 

Gen X

Gen X consists of people born from 1965 to 1980 and is the generation that spends the most money. This makes Gen X a highly important audience for companies to target since they are the most likely to buy your products and services. 

Generation Marketing Characteristics

• Gen X heavily utilizes reviews and will likely give their opinions on products and services.
• This generation responds best to personal connections/relationships with the company (i.e., loyalty programs, birthday gifts, and coupons).

Gen X Marketing Strategies 

Great examples of marketing strategies that are geared towards Gen X consist of Citibank’s “Thank you from Citi” program and Revolut’s rewards program. The “Thank you from Citi” program gives you the option to use your points, which you receive when using the card, to buy gift cards, exchange for cash, or donate to charities. Revolut’s reward program allows you to receive cash back directly to your account and gives you access to promo codes through their specific program. Both of these programs include points systems, coupons, discounts, and birthday gifts which prove to be extremely effective tactics for this generation. 

As stated above, Gen X spends the most money, so using effective marketing strategies like these gives them the motivation to start spending. Including tactics like the points system and discounts encourage them to further spend money on your products and services.

Millennials

Millennials were born from 1981 to 1996 and are the most technologically advanced and modernized out of these three generations meaning that digital marketing and trend research are vital when exploring marketing strategies for this generation.

Millennial Marketing Characteristics 

• This generation relies heavily on supporting and promoting products and services from their favorite influencers and celebrities. 
• Millennials respond more to inbound marketing (i.e. blog posts, how-to’s, YouTube) than outbound marketing (i.e. radio ads, billboards, direct mail campaigns).
• Mobile usage is higher in this generation than the others, so making your marketing strategies mobile-friendly is crucial.

Millennial Marketing Strategies

Capital One had a huge breakthrough in terms of marketing towards millennials with their Capital One March Madness commercials that aired during the 2023 tournament. Capital One created multiple commercials including famous figures like Spike Lee, Willie Nelson, Jennifer Garner, and more and also added humor which all appeals to the Millennial generation. 

Overall Marketing Strategy

All of these generations require their own unique marketing strategies, but there are still similarities that can overlap between them, the largest one being that all generations desire personalization.

They want to see things that highlight their interests and location so that they are not constantly being flooded with information and products that don’t pertain to them. Marketing is all about personalization and will continue to grow over the years. 

To learn more about how to best market to your audience in the finance and business industry, head to our blog page!