Table Of Contents
- Why should you consider trust and values while devising marketing strategies?
- What is the relationship between generational values and digital marketing?
- How to Apply Generational Values to Your Marketing Strategies?
Brands need to understand the contribution of Generational Values in creating successful Digital Marketing strategies. Marketers spend a lot of time tracking and evaluating impressions, clicks, and conversions. However, the key is to also keep in mind to understand the factors such as brand trust and consumer expectations. The reason is that these factors greatly impact conversions.
Marketers have to dig deep and analyze details other than surface-level indicators. Considering consumer values and trust factor is a growing phenomenon.
You'll discover the three essential components of the values-to-trust debate in this blog, as well as concrete takeaways to help you implement a values-led approach in your overall marketing strategies.
Why should you consider trust and values?
The idea is to empathize with the consumers and connect the brand values with consumer’s values. This increases consumer trust, eventually increasing the consumer’s loyalty to the brand.
Focusing on the values of trust and reliability is a way to increase brand relevance and making consumers believe that the brand is ‘just right’ for them.
There are three aspects to this discussion:
- Generational values drive brand loyalty, customer engagement, and customer expectations as well. Moreover, these generational values evolve and differ, seldom overlapping between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers.
- Just one-third of the marketers think that taking a stand on social and political matters strengthens a brand’s relationship with the customers. Almost half of them think that it’s a gamble which can go both ways. A huge percentage doesn’t have an opinion on the matter.
- More than 80% of customers believe that brands should take part in solving societal problems and coming up with solutions, ultimately giving back to society.
Do Generational Values Matter?
It's more essential than ever to tailor your brand's message so that it connects with diverse groups. As a company trying to establish relationships with different consumers, it's vital to remember that generational views and values differ.
If we analyze the users on the internet, we see that the majority of users are Millennials, then comes Gen X, then Gen Z, and then Baby Boomers. Now it is vital to understand that both Gen Z and Millennials prioritize rational thinking and values of knowledge and curiosity are predominant. On the other hand, when it comes to Gen X and Baby Boomers, its family, authenticity, relationship, hard work, and honesty are the values that they put first.
We have seen on multiple occasions that Gen Z especially boycotted a brand based on the clash between their values and what the brand stands for, combining it with the aforementioned percentage of 80% of consumers wanting brands to take action, we get to know that consumers are weighing brands based on their values and they are even willing to disengage with a brand if the values clash.
Digital Marketing companies are suggesting businesses to take a solid position and demonstrate their values. Today, doing nothing or playing it safe is riskier than truly presenting what your brand stands for in the world. Studies show that Gen Z is showing increasing importance to their values. This further strengthens the argument because when Gen Z takes up the workforce, they would put more emphasis on the already elevated importance of values.
Brands will have to focus more on inclusivity and trust to tackle the increasing shift towards a value-based mindset. Advertising strategies will have predominant aspects of values such as inclusivity, trust, etc. One part of that would be to add values based keywords in advertising campaigns.
So, What’s Next?
Studies show that nearly two-thirds of companies’ ad spend would be digital. It is important to connect to customers on the shared values and purposes. It goes for every sort of marketing but especially for digital channels.
Brands will have to conduct in-depth studies to understand the values that consumers hold dear and make strategies to align these values with the company’s values.
As discussed earlier, it is evident that the values differ and not all the groups share the same set of values. So, brands will have to understand what group they are targeting what values does their target audience share. Moreover, marketing strategies would have to be increasingly authentic, holistic, and compatible with varying audiences.
Gen X is the last generation that knows something about the world without the internet and mobile devices and Gen Z is the first generation to have no knowledge about the world without reliance on the web and smartphones. These generational values need to be considered while devising marketing strategies. However, one common denominator that stays the same for all generations is ‘authenticity’.
How to Apply Generational Values to Your Marketing Strategies?
Let’s discuss some key steps you can take to devise an authentic and value-led marketing strategy.
1. Assess your mission statement.
Take a step back and thoroughly assess your brand statement. Figure out a strategy to align your brand values to consumer values and what people are expecting from the brand.
2. Align your messaging with the target audience.
Understanding your brand values is not enough, you should try and align your brand messaging and be vocal about your message on the landing pages and ad copies. Be sure that this message is authentic and correlates with the audience’s values.
3. Build a strategy by leaning into all demographics and audiences.
How do you plan to segment your customer base and reapply to campaigns? Target and bid – test all ages and genders and learn from the results before optimizing. Match demographic insights with genuine ad text that speaks to the priorities of each generation.
4. Experiment with dynamic search ads to understand values-led search queries.
Advertising agencies in Dubai and around the world suggest studying all the Search Query Reports (SQRs) regularly to figure out which value-driven search queries are converting and so that you can add them as new keywords in your advertising campaigns. Your marketing strategy should revolve around the value proposition that somehow correlates with all generations.
Following a value-led approach is complicated yet useful. If you manage to figure out what your audience requires from the brand and their expectations, you can then tailor your marketing strategy accordingly and get positive results.
It is not something that can be neglected because consumers nowadays put emphasis on a set of values and weigh brands on the basis of that. This makes it empirical for brands to have a set strategy to effectively get the message across. With the ever-increasing competition in the market, it is only going to get tougher.
This is it for today’s blog. I hope you liked it and that you learned a thing or two about incorporating a value-led approach to your marketing and branding strategies. If you have any queries or comments, reach out to me and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. If you are a brand that wants to target a diverse audience, reach out to Prism, the best Digital Marketing Agency in Dubai and we will make sure that your message reaches the intended audience in the most effective manner.
About The Author: Lovetto Nazareth
Lovetto Nazareth is a digital marketing consultant and agency owner of Prism Digital. He has been in the advertising and digital marketing business for the last 2 decades and has managed thousands of campaigns and generated millions of dollars of new leads. He is an avid adventure sports enthusiast and a singer-songwriter. Follow him on social media on @Lovetto Nazareth