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The Internet, the Younger Generation, and Your Bottom Line
One of my challenges in communicating with clients is explaining how different the workforce is today and how different the web traffic is now versus a few short years ago. The expectation or mindset that a person brings with them when they visit your website depends on their age, to a large degree.
Have you ever asked a teenager or, for that matter, someone in their 20s or early 30s the following question: What do you think about the Internet? Or, how important is the Internet to you? Something like that. When I do that with my teenager, her friends and my grown kids they give me blank stares. That’s because they grew up on the internet. They live on it, and asking that question is akin to asking a fish, What do you think of the water? It’s just part of how they live. In fact, they couldn’t easily live without it. It’s their tool for conversation moreso than the phone or email. We have an answering machine at the house and I cannot get the kids to actually listen to the messages. For the younger generation, Internet-connected mobile phones with texting are their form of connectivity.
I’m generalizing here, of course, but if you ask those same questions of folks in their 40s and 50s on up, you often find grimaces and scoffing about how much trouble it is or how much time it takes to mess with the Internet. It’s just not central to them. It’s more like getting wet and having to dry off every time they use the Internet, whereas the kids just take to it like, well, fish to water.
This is important because the younger generation has a different expectation when coming to your website. They want instant results. They respond well to Live Chat on a website. If they happen to send an email for help or a question about a product, they expect an answer in a few hours, not a day or two. I recently met with a client where we talked about how traffic to their site will be increasing as they add blogging and more forums and so forth. I said that this increase will come with an expectation from clients that if you’re that involved/engaged on the Internet, then they will assume someone will answer questions quickly. So I said, “Tell me how long it takes for someone to answer emails now.” (Note: This was a B2B company.) Everyone at the table looked at me blankly. Nobody knew.
Do you know the average amount of time it takes to respond to email in your business? What are you learning from your clients via those emails?
This is all part of the elements and channels for conversation. Let’s make 2009 the year we think about this as an opportunity, instead of ‘one more darn thing to do.’ It could impact your sales.
Tom
The Internet, the Younger Generation, and Your Bottom Line
I’m 27 and I suppose that means I’m on the line between the Y Generation and the X Generation, but it’s true that I am absolutely immune to traditional advertising. I fast forward through commercials, don’t listen to radio, rarely read magazines and ignore ads when I do, and don’t think I’ve ever clicked on an online banner ad. The Obama Campaign tapped into the Millennial/Y Generation, though, and in turn they def helped push him over the edge. If you’re marketing to that age range then there are ABSOLUTELY some lessons to be learned from his campaign…
http://www.thedailyanchor.com/2009/01/19/marketing-to-millennials-a-lesson-learned-from-barack-obama/