Ditch the labels: Who do you think you're talking to?

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Before you write a piece of content, send out a press release, or hit the ‘record’ button on that next piece to camera video or podcast, be sure that you know who your target audience is.

That may sound obvious, yet it baffles me the number of businesses we come across who continue to use antiquated ‘labels’ when planning their PR and content marketing campaigns.

It baffles me because such labels are utter bollocks. Here’s why.

If you were born between 1981 or 1995, you are a Millennial. Let’s suppose you were born in 1981 – you’d be 43 years old this year. If you were born in 1995, well, you can work that out for yourself (OK, I’ll do it for you – you’d be 29 this year). So, that’s a difference of 14 years, which isn’t so bad.

Fast forward to the next demographic – Gen Z. Those people who fall under this label were born between 1996 (making them 28 years old this year) and 2010 (14 years old this year). Again, the age gap between them is just 14 years but bugger me it’s HUGE when you consider the life stages of those aged 14 and those aged 28.

How many 28 year olds wish to be communicated to by your organisation in the same way as a 14 year old would? The answer is none of them.

Think of it like this: A 14 year old is in their first year of GCSEs, lives at home, has a parent or guardian who does all their washing, ironing, and cooking, and probably gives them pocket money. They may never have had a romantic encounter yet.

How many Gen Zers aged 28 year olds wish to be communicated to by your organisation in the same way as younger Gen Zers aged 14 year old?

Then there is a 28 year old who may have graduated from university. Since then, they could have been active in the workforce for the last seven years, promoted once, are married with a wee babee and already paying a mortgage on their own home.

Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z etc are all meaningless labels used by marketers to simplify their promotional efforts. To get a greater return on your PR and marketing investment, you need to understand your target audience and their needs.

Armed with that insight, you should then focus your messaging on addressing the issues, desires, interests, pains and challenges they have rather than taking the scattergun approach that will fail – and it will fail – to hit the right spot and waste much of your budget.