Marketing to Millennials

I stole this magazine from the doctor's office while waiting for blood work.  I had already waited an hour for the doctor after they had called me two days prior to ask me if I could move my appointment up an hour.  I figured they wouldn't miss the magazine.  Since I sell to more and more Millennials these days, I need to know what will attract them to buy health insurance.  Just as I had guessed, nothing.

John Bonini at Impact Branding & Design wrote an interesting blog entitled "What you need to know about marketing to Millennials" as a result of the Time article.  He interviewed other Millennials (Born 1980-2000) to get their take on the topic.  Here are their thoughts compared to my Baby Boomer (Born 1943-1960) perspective:

1)  They do everything online.  OK, have you seen my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Blogspot?  We invented online; of course, we love it, too.  The big difference is we go online either for work or play.  We do not "live" online.  I am not even sure that is possible unless you are an avatar.  Most Baby Boomers are still trying to work at important jobs earning real money so they can retire someday.  That means we have to "live" in the real world not the digital one.

2)  They don't read mail, newspapers or watch ads on TV.  Who does anymore?  Next.

3)  They won't buy something unless they need it and it is recommended by someone they know.  Like you really, reaaaalllly needed that iPhone 5 because 800 of your 1000 Facebook friends had one.  So, your mom bought you one and put it on her plan.  Right, got it.  So, in reality I need to be marketing to your mom who is probably a Gen Xer (Born 1961-80).  It is odd to me when an adult employee tells me they need to check with their mom before they can buy $3 of life insurance.  Do you check with your mom or your Facebook friends every time you feel a need to buy a Starbucks?  Maybe it is because we have delayed the maturation of Millennials to the point where they can't think of why they would need life or health insurance.  I got married when I was 19.  Had a mortgage at 22 and a baby at 23.  We had to delay purchasing things we wanted in order to have the things we needed.  The idea of asking for recommendations from friends and family is a good idea but not a new one.  Relationship selling is an old concept.  I agree with Millennials that people buy from people they know and like.

4)  They get angry if they are not marketed to how and when they want.  One Millennial said, "Make it relevant to me and my needs and interests."  I can sometimes get annoyed by advertising but angry?  Haven't you heard, "The only one that can make you angry is you?"  See, it is all about YOU.  If the Internet is so central to your life that an ad can make you angry, perhaps it is time you stop "living" on the Internet.  My advice to Millennials is the same as I would give to a depressed Baby Boomer, stop focusing on yourself and start giving back to others.  Get out and get your hands dirty planting an urban vegetable garden or building a home for the needy.

5)  They want marketing by companies that make a difference.  This me and my focus is interesting because Millennials also want products they buy to "make a difference."  Have you noticed how many products have a "charity" ingredient?  Perhaps this is how Millennials can have their cake and eat it, too.  Our local chamber of commerce has an annual race to support, uh, the chamber which receives no public funds.  The race took off in popularity only after a small portion of the race fee was donated to a charity.  As a Baby Boomer, I will freely give hundreds of dollars a year to several charities that I select.  I don't need or want a corporation deciding who will receive donations based on me buying a pink spoon.

In summary, human beings are not that different when it comes to buying stuff.  We all want to know and be known.  This is probably why everyone enjoys shopping on Amazon and never admits to shopping at Wal-Mart.  Amazon calls us by name and knows what we have bought and what we want to buy.  They will even gift wrap it for us and send it to our dad's address.  We want to feel like we are smart and capable of making good buying decisions.  We want to feel important and do something important.  It made my day to see that Google had changed their search logo to celebrate MY birthday.  The market never changes just the methods.  We are not so different, you and I.

How a change in attitude changed my life

All I ever wanted to be was a secretary.  Maybe I was influenced by the always professional Della Street on the TV show, “Perry Mason” or Lucille Ball’s silly character in “The Lucy Show.”  The roles of women in the 1960’s were changing ever so slightly.  I wanted to be more than a wife and mother.  I wanted to work.  As a teen, I remember seeing women emerging from high rise buildings in Nashville with newspapers under their arms after a day in the “salt mines.”  That was what I wanted to be.


General Accounting Department, 24^th floor, National Life Insurance Company, 1970.
  My spot is the second desk, left side, covered typewriter.



I took every secretarial class offered at my high school – typing, shorthand, and accounting. By the end of my senior year, I had already been hired by National Life Insurance Company who, by the way, had the tallest building in Nashville at the time, 31 floors. I was given a typing test and because of my quick fingers and accuracy with numbers was given a 10-cent per hour raise before I even started work. I was assigned to the General Accounting Department on the 24th floor. The minimum wage in 1970 was $1.60 per hour. I made $2 per hour to type 4-part, carbon-copied journal entries all day on an IBM Selectric. I was living my dream as I streamed out of the National Life tower in the afternoons along with a thousand co-workers. (Now called the Tennessee Tower.)




Carla at the Royal while Kelly has an in-depth conversation on the push button phone.
  This is why Jerry was able to retire with a year of sick leave. Probably summer of 1983.

 

Several jobs, many years and a couple of kids later, I was still a secretary although the politically correct title was administrative assistant. I was working for Philips Semiconductor. That is Philips with one L, the largest electronics company in the world at the time. When I say I was a secretary, I mean I made my boss’s coffee, added cream and placed it on his desk every morning, handle facing right. I transcribed letters using a Royal electric typewriter which I liked better than the Selectric because the keyboard was flatter. I could fly on it. Something was happening though. I started thinking about what it would be like if someone served me coffee every morning.


About 1987 Philips decided to add a person to handle inside sales to our two-person sales office.  This was my chance to move up.  I had been there for six years.  I knew everything there was to know about our products and our customers.  The only thing I didn’t have was a diploma.  As it turned out, it was the only thing I needed.  Philips transferred a college-educated young woman from the California home office to take the job.  I was crushed and went into what my boss called a “snit.”  This is when the change of attitude happened.

Wanda sitting at first personal computer at Signetics in 1985. I was amazed at how quickly Lotus 1-2-3 could sort a list of part numbers.

During a conversation with the California HR department, I was encouraged to take advantage of Philips’ degree assistance program.  They had probably got wind of my “snit” and were afraid I would quit.  My husband, who had a Master’s Degree in Education by this time, also encouraged me to take some classes at our local community college.  “Why not get an education at their expense and then quit?” was my thinking at the time so I started taking one class a quarter and testing out of work-related classes.  What started out as taking revenge on my company for what I saw as an injustice, turned out to be just what I needed to get me out of my “snit” and change my attitude.  As it turned out, “Miss College Educated” quit after two years and guess who got the job?  Me.  I even got an office with a door and we hired a new administrative assistant who, I must say, wasn’t much of a typist.

It took me five years but I finally got a diploma with an Associate’s Degree in Business.  I worked for Philips eleven years before I moved on to outside sales.  It wasn’t until 2005 as a District Sales Manager with Aflac that I rented my own offices and hired my own administrative assistant.  I had learned to like coffee by then.  It was an occupational hazard of being a salesman on the road for so many years.  My assistant did everything I asked her to do but I never asked her to bring me coffee.  I’ve come a long way, baby.
 

Julie Templeton, Coordinator-in-Training, and Wanda Holt, District Sales Coordinator, in the conference room at Wanda’s office on Peabody Street in 2006.