What’s the best way to reach your ad agency’s new business prospects? It may depend on how old they are.
New research from the Center for the Digital Future at USC’s Annenburg School, was presented by Jeffrey Cole, Director, at the recent 4As Transformations conference.
Cole broke Boomers down into two groups: late boomers are those 47-56 years old; classic boomers are now 57-65 years old. The former are most likely of interest to new business people targeting the most-senior marketing executives (naturally, depending on their age).
Key points about late boomers
- Boomers are the first generation to take digital with them into older age.
- They are the heaviest users of social – to stay in touch, to learn, and to get help.
- They are less interested in hanging out their business shingle on social networking sites.
- They care greatly about the source of the information they receive.
- They are the heaviest readers of newspapers (online and paper).
- They use email the most, texting and IMing much less.
Impact on new business prospecting
Consider the following tactics:
- Use agency PR to build relevance and to get your name in print – in newspapers your prospects are likely to read.
- Use email to build your agency’s brand recognition, with links to microsites that contain testimonials and case studies. You might consider services like Marketing Mine, Agency ComPile, or Adforum to help with this.
- Focus on referrals. Build your agency’s “friends and family” program to make it as impactful as possible to the widest possible audience.
- If your prospect happens to maintain a profile on a social networking site like LinkedIn (despite the research saying they care less about this), have someone who knows you provide an introduction.
