I’ve been preaching for years that there is no such thing as ‘the public’ anymore.

There was a time (that I can remember!) when we could talk about the public as being one entity. There was one public when John F. Kenney was shot. When Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon. When Canada won the epic hockey series with the Soviet Union in 1972. 

But today, there is no single public left. We’re not all urban. We’re not all religious. We don’t all drive cars. We’re not all straight – or white – and we don’t all watch the news on TV.

What we are today is a whole bunch of groups, tribes and audiences. And, the trick to great communicating, marketing and fundraising today (in my opinion at least) is to hone in on the right audience(s) and tailor your messages to them.

The battle in the communications marketplace is RELEVANCE! At any given moment in our day, we all have hundreds of choices of what kind of information we consume. If the information we’re paying attention to isn’t of much interest to us, we change channels VERY quickly.

To put it another way, we live today in an ATTENTION economy. Today’s scarce resource isn’t gold or water or oil or food. It’s the attention of the marketplace. Technology has multiplied and magnified information availability to the point where the consumer’s (or donor’s) mindshare is most precious.

Use the cohort divides

In my own experience, the single most effective way to divide audiences into manageable and effective groups is by generational cohort. Let me run through the four cohorts I think about almost every day:

1.     CIVICS (born before 1946)

2.     BABY BOOMERS (born 1946 to 1966)

3.     GEN X’ers (born 1967 to 1982)

4.     MILLENNIALS (born 1982 to 1998)

Each of these generations came of age in very different times under very different influences. We have different beliefs, values, communication styles and tastes. 

Just think of music for example:

My dad (a Civic) grew up on Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby.

I (a Boomer) grew up on the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.

My daughter (a Millennial) grew up with the Backstreet Boys and Chumbawumba.

In my experience, age is the single biggest differentiator in society today. Whenever I work with national charities made up of provincial/territorial chapters, we always get into the long discussion about geographic regions and tailoring messages for different parts of the country. My contribution to this discussion is that I believe that there’s much more difference between a 75 year-old and an 18 year-old from the same city than there is between 18 year-olds from opposite coasts in the country.

Speaking to each generation

Here is an introductory tip sheet on how I try to address the different generations with approaches that are specific to them:

1.     Civics (today aged 72+) 

This is the last of the loyal, dependable generations. This group by and large respects people in positions of authority and feels a sense of duty and responsibility to support good causes (yep, they can be motivated by guilt!). This is the last cohort that attends religious services with regularity – and its giving motivations are very much based in the Judeo-Christian ethic (love thy neighbour as thyself, for example).

2.     Baby Boomers (today aged 51-71)

While Civics have very conforming values, Boomers are all about individuality. Boomers place a high importance on identity – and their sense of their own individual brand if you like. While you might talk to a Civic about how ‘we as a society need to find a cure for cancer’, you might say to the Boomer ‘your support to the fight against cancer will show the world your commitment to this important cause’.

When I think about Boomers, I stay focus on three words: It’s about me!

3.     Gen Xers (today aged 35-50)

While Boomers came from Leave It To Beaver families for the most part, Gen X was the first cohort in history where single parent families were common. While Boomers preached ‘free love’, Gen Xers came of age with STDs. The Gen X cohort by and large is more anxious and less trusting than its predecessors.

To me, there are two major considerations when communicating with a Gen X audience. First, make sure you’ve got your facts straight. Gen Xers are skeptics, and they want to see your proof. Secondly, I believe that the choice of messenger is critical with this group. Gen Xers are most influenced by their peers – so rather than getting your CEO to say how great you are, get a donor in her 40s to do it for you. Barack Obama had huge success using peer-to-peer persuasion with Gen Xers during both his Presidential campaigns.

4.     Millennials (today aged 19-34)

These guys fascinate me! (That fascination started with the birth of my daughter.) This cohort grew up with digital technology and doesn’t feel the least bit intimidated by innovation. This is also the generation that has no memory of the Cold War or the nuclear threats that existed between the USA and the USSR.

On the one hand, Millennials feel that older generations have given them a world that is broken. On the other hand, this generation has the confidence to feel that they can fix it once the rest of us get out of the way.

In my opinion, there are three key elements to communicating effectively with Millennials:

§  The content of your message must be ABSOLUTELY real and authentic. This cohort can sniff out corporatespeak propaganda a mile away.

§  You must be very thoughtful in selecting the right channel to reach the Millennial you’re targeting. This cohort grew up in a multichannel world – and they stick with their own media preferences.

§  You must tailor your message to fit the channel you’re using. You must not cut and paste direct mail copy to create an e-appeal for example. If you want to communicate successfully with Millennials, you must become something akin to multilingual – except your languages might be web copy, email, Facebook, Twitter etc. 

IT’S AN IMPERFECT SCIENCE

Before many of you reading this start jumping on me saying “I’m a Gen Xer and I’m not like that!” let me say that every generation to me is like a bell curve. Most people within a cohort will reflect the values and ideas I’ve share with you here. But there will always be outliers who don’t run with the pack. In many ways, I see myself as a classic Boomer, but at other times, I think I have a lot in common with Millennials.

Having qualified myself, I do stand by my original thesis:

§  There is no public – or single audience - anymore.

§  Of the countless ways that we can divide the population into groups or tribes, I have always found age/generation to be a very useful segmentation tool.

§  Each of the four generational cohorts has its own unique characteristics – which lead us to communicate with it in different ways.

When we can communicate effectively through the generations, our messages will resonate – and I believe, we’ll make more money!

Fraser Green is a passionate organizer/campaigner/evangelist who believes that we connect with each other by listening closely and telling kickass stories. Fraser has been an owner (and bigtime smartypants) at Good Works since 1996 – and he’s still listening a lot and telling way too many stories for his own good. Fraser believes working in philanthropy and living a great life are one and the same thing.

Fraser is the author of ‘3D Philanthropy’, the co-author of ‘Iceberg Philanthropy’ and a contributing author to the book ‘MeVolution’.