Mad 4 Blog

Last week, we introduced the concept of emerging adulthood as defined and extrapolated upon in a New York Times article by Robin Marantz Henig. The term was created by psychology professor Jeffrey Jensen Arnett to describe the extended growing-up process that’s undergone by today’s youth between late teen years until about age 30.

This week we ask: How does all of this relate to marketing?

Well, of course marketers are always keen to target their most responsive audiences. By defining and addressing key demographics, communication can be established and long-term relationships can begin to develop. By being among the first to acknowledge and identify this life stage, marketers can smartly adapt campaigns to speak directly to emerging adults, rather than lump them into an adulthood group with those over 18 and younger than 45.

Originally surmised by psychologist Kenneth Kensington in the 1960s, and confirmed today by Arnett’s findings, characteristics of the late teens to late twenties age group include: “pervasive ambivalence toward self and society,” “the feeling of absolute freedom, of living in a world of pure possibilities” and “enormous value placed upon change, transformation and movement.” Taking into consideration the unique traits, behaviors and needs that define this niche group, marketers can best speak to emerging adults on their own terms.

And it isn’t like scientists discovered an over-the-hill life stage for those aged 45-55. This new class of individuals is just out of high school or college, and marketers who get a grasp on emerging adulthood have the chance to severely impact overall success in terms of brand relationships. Because generations are also now living longer than ever before, securing a bond with customers and clients while they’re in their youth means potential connections for at least another half-century–if not more.

This is especially underscored by the fact that emerging adulthood is being significantly defined by the 20-somethings perspective on their life’s direction, ambitions and their own personal future–and by reaching them in this forming, malleable state, it gives marketers a lot more room and flexibility to begin conversations than with another age group–which, when younger, may change several times before picking one path…or may, when older, be fixed on one path or idea and refuse to budge at all.

Of course, it needs to be said that “emerging adult” has not yet entered the psychological or sociological vernacular; in fact, several scientists contest that it can’t be considered a valid life stage until it’s ubiquitous, a necessary status that all persons must pass through to become adults–regardless of background, economy, generation and other variables. But for the smart marketer, keeping an eye on such trends that are, well, emerging, is just one way to keep understanding and serving your audience—while getting an edge on the competition. And while we’re talking about staying ahead of the curve, may we at Mad 4 Marketing be the first to progressively suggest the nickname “e-dult”?

Keep an ear to the ground, marketers: A new demographic might be, well, emerging. Last week, New York Times posted an article about a new life development stage that’s being deemed ‘emerging adulthood’–the period between adolescence and adulthood. Coined by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, psychology professor at Clark University, this term applies to all those 20-somethings who’ve graduated school but may be unemployed, living at home or otherwise dependent on others for getting by–yes, especially their parents. It also describes the increasing collective of young folk who feel no pressure to cohabitate, marry or begin families anytime soon–instead prolonging the period between their childhood freedom and the markers that are typically used to define mature adulthood.

Surprisingly, the term adolescence has only been recognized as its own life stage since the beginning of last century, notes the article’s author, Robin Marantz Henig. Changing youth labor laws and public school imperatives made it necessary to reconsider and redefine the processes of maturing–and acknowledge, for the first time, the gap between childhood and adulthood. Now, due to recent changes in our society, we may be looking at a similar wedge between life stages that will refuse to be ignored: emerging adulthood.

Today’s understanding of emerging adulthood is mostly based on observed and surveyed behavioral patterns from the start of this millennium. However, the life stage is accredited to factors that go as far back as the 1920s–the women’s right to vote–through the ‘70s and the prevalence of birth control, just for example. Advances in science, technology and politics have changed the shape of today’s families; in turn, life path flexibility is encouraging individuals to take more time to figure out what they want and when they want it. When major life goals change, so do their timelines, and this means that the process of arriving at–much less defining–life’s stages must also necessarily adapt.

Arnett’s information seems to be bolstered by a National Institute of Mental Health study that began in 1991 and recently concluded, proving that humans’ brains are not fully mature until about 25 years of age—though it was previously believed that they had matured by the end of the teenage years. Until the mind has finished going through its own primary developmental cycle, perhaps individuals cannot be bothered to make major, long-term and life-altering decisions—or should not be expected to.

This means that on top of external feedback–such as society’s increasing acceptance toward 20-somethings who have not yet secured their adult role in life–these older young adults are also enabled in their delayed commitments to responsibility by internal structures at the emotional, psychological, intellectual and even philosophical level. Arnett’s research shows that today’s emerging adults are likely to be more self-centered than in previous generations, but also more optimistic about their futures and forthcoming opportunities in life–and therefore less likely to settle down before they’re absolutely ready, regardless of traditional timetables.

Next week, look for Part Two, wherein we discuss how to market to emerging adults.

It always makes sense to ask successfully acquired clients and customers how they came to hear about your business. By carefully comparing how well each of your advertising efforts performs, you can bulldoze past a lot of trial-and-error and simply direct your budget toward what works, both in quantitative and qualitative units. For example, if no one’s seen that ad in the newspaper but everyone heard about you from a friend or relative, you may wish to pull your print ads and focus on buzz-generating word-of-mouth campaigns–or even reward former patrons for referring a friend. And if you’re reaching a higher caliber of clientele via brochure than billboard, you’ll certainly want to bring your message down to the smaller scale, which can also cut back cost.

These days, tracking is everything when it comes to building successful campaigns. Online, it’s perfectly easy to determine how a person landed on your page; analytics mark each click-through by its referring links, search engine source, browser type and even the viewer’s physical location—it’s not only effortless, but also automatically built into most website content management systems. But even online there’s always more you can do; when it comes to e-commerce, many shopping outlets utilize codes. Asking buyers to enter a code before they take advantage of a sale helps marketers to track which sales and campaigns were more successful than others, and to help determine if shoppers heard about it from a newsletter, referral or ad. This is why you might see several usable codes available for the same sale, depending on where you hear about it.

In what other ways can coding and tracking be used in your business endeavors? Mad 4 Marketing recently posted job listings on several career search websites. But each posting required us to pay a fee, and since we weren’t sure which websites or which wording would be most successful for attracting the best new teammate, we decided to generate a few different ads. We asked job candidates on each board and posting to reply with a different subject line. This took a little more time and thought, but we were able to see from where we were getting hits, and what kind of prospective employees were nipping the bait. After the first week we cut our ad placement (and cost!) in half and only used phrasing that was clearly expressing our desires to the most qualified candidates.

Another example is Satori’s text message campaign. In 2008, we used a lot of on-the-scene guerrilla marketing to advertise for the newly opening apartment rental community in Fort Lauderdale. We wanted to reach out to those who already lived in and loved the surrounding area of South Florida. At each event (such as street fairs, art shows and the boat parade), we advertised the chance to win six months’ free rent by texting a code to a given phone number. At each event, the code differed. That way, we could see which community event had directed the most participants to our giveaway, as well as which regions or crowds were most interested in Satori. This information turned out to be extremely valuable in later marketing endeavors, such as choosing local ad placement.

The bottom line is that tracking efforts are a smart investment in the future. It means looking past today’s brochure or even tomorrow’s website, toward next year’s entire marketing strategy. Tracking provides you with the tools to always understand and surpass prior tactics–and no matter what, this means that you will ultimately succeed.

On the heels of this article, which explains how Hulu.com uses surveys to gauge an audience’s opinion on ads, comes a recent story out of Australia. The down under nation’s Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) is dealing with less-than-positive feedback on its published content. But not only is this feedback negative, it’s also out of left field. Naturally, when you ask for your audience’s opinion, you have to take what you get. And as every suggestion-box-key-holder knows, every informed and constructive comment comes with a dreary downside: the throngs of merciless, inapplicable complaints.

Surveying is one of the most useful tools for marketers, and having eyes and ears in the field is invaluable. How else to accurately and objectively measure how well your work is doing? But when you solicit for comments, it means taking the good with the bad (and having the wisdom to know the difference). Someone has to read them, and someone has to sort them, but is there any easy way to whittle down the winners from the whiners?

As outlined by the Sydney Morning Herald, examples of useless reports included:

- A dancing child as being too perverse.
- A child eating an ice cream cone as being sexualized.
- A rude redhead as being vilified for her coloring.
- An errant wool ball as promoting violence against Victorians.

Tactfully, the ASB states that the real problem comes down to allocation of resources, stating that time and money can’t be spent addressing irresolvable issues. Marketing survey site Mumbrella, which analyzed a sample of received complaints earlier this year, was far less restrained, calling the task a matter of dealing with “idiots” and “single-issue zealots.” Many of the criticisms led the agency to believe that complainers might even be reporting out of spite for a particular brand or product, rather than actually taking issue with the commercial itself. However, due to quality control regulations currently in place, even one raised issue warrants an investigation by the ASB. And the number of incoming complaints has more than doubled in the past half-decade alone.

Even if a significant percentage of feedback is coming from “the nutty fringes of society,” according to the ASB, how can the bureau separate the wheat from the chaff? A system of standards is being implemented that takes into account a new set of clauses dictating what is and isn’t nationally pre-approved. For example, dogs on a leash are not examples of animal abuse. While it may seem painstaking to parse out the more minute depictions of questionable behaviors, these guidelines are expected to make it that much easier to quickly sort and reduce complaints so that only the most practical are left to consider.

Chief Executive Fiona Jolly of the Advertising Standards Bureau informs that an estimated 10-30% of incoming complaints would be filtered out by this system. The percentage of previously discarded pre-filter complaints is unknown, but at least will be markedly reduced—making it that much easier to focus on the comments that can actually be used to approve quality advertising content that appeals to most audiences.

When it comes to online marketing, the main touchstone for success is user-friendliness. An obvious example is e-commerce websites, which must make it as easy as possible for visitors to complete transactions from first search to shopping-cart check-out. But every website—from static information pages to dynamic social media forums—must ensure that readers can quickly locate what they’re looking for—be that a desired product, specific factoid or overall experience. All it takes is a moment of confusion or distraction, and visitors are just as likely to click away and take their business elsewhere.

Sitemaps and very clear menus can also help with user-friendliness. Speed (in terms of fast page loads), navigational organization and clarity of layout are also vital. Even the most engaging content must be edited and streamlined to ensure that virtual passersby don’t move right along, because this generation’s ‘window shoppers’ increasingly refuse to jump through hurdles to get what they’re seeking on the Web. In a nutshell, the main tactic is to get visitors from Point A (their landing page) to Point B (the intended conversion) with as few clicks—and as little frustration—as possible.

Recently, profitable partner sites Catster.com and Dogster.com underwent makeovers in order to improve user experience. Even though these two popular sites had no shortage of traffic, realizing that they could absorb even more by enhancing appearance and services led to a complete overhaul of the pet-friendly websites. While the old adage states not to fix things that aren’t broken, this attitude has no bearing when it comes to the Internet. In this case, the sites took initiative based on perceived needs, and noted a full four percent of new traffic coming from iPhones thanks to improvements in small-screen usability.

On the other hand, when does too much become too much? These days, it seems that whenever users discover a glitch or imagine an upgrade, they increasingly expect their favorite websites to predict unprecedented solutions and implement complex programming changes overnight (see: Facebook). Web managers can spare a few headaches by anticipating user needs well before they clamor for change. Strategies include extensively testing the appeal of upcoming features, and keeping abreast of return activity rates. Of course, nothing will ever usurp the time-tested method of trial and error.

And then there’s the good ol’ Suggestions Box. Be proactive: ask users to tell you what they want—before they come around to inform you in the form of a complaint. For marketers, this is doubly beneficial: feedback can be used to help target what users really want, which can influence the success of future campaigns. It’s not rocket science; it’s just basic smart marketing. It’s safe to assume that users are seeking, at minimum, consistent demonstration of your willingness to improve.

With every website, there’s always room for improvement when it comes to usability. Any site that considers itself a finished product rather than an organic process is already on the fast-track to failure—or, at the very least, can look forward to its users becoming a lot less friendly.

You may be surprised to hear the above statement, especially coming from us, but it is the simple truth. In good times and bad times, a large percentage of the marketing efforts you put out into the world won’t be as effective as you had planned. What makes marketing successful is the strength of your brand and the emotional connection of your unique message.

An important thing to keep in mind is that failure should not be seen as terminal. In the world of marketing, we tend to look at failures as part of a greater growth process. It’s important to understand what aspects of your marketing endeavors failed or succeeded and then analyze your results to discover why. Many marketing efforts are actually staggered, so that continual analysis/improvement is built directly into the process. Being able to adapt as you go is always a bonus, which is why we never recommend blowing your annual budget on any one tactic. Rather, you should seek cost-effective and well-rounded strategies that will allow you to explore multiple angles and make the greatest possible impact on your determined audience.

Good marketers know that success or failure can be measured in many different ways. For example, even if your conversions aren’t hitting the marks that you expected when you began your marketing campaign doesn’t mean that you haven’t connected with your audience. Every time you engage with prospective clients, you’re building up a bigger presence and allowing them to familiarize with your business and services. Naturally, we always want these impressions to convert to sales. However, the ultimate success of some marketing techniques may not be measurable in nickels and dimes; but by introducing your brand and opening a line of communication, you’re still accomplishing invaluable marketing connections.

As always, consistent and comprehensive marketing campaigns that approach niche audiences from multiple angles over time are the most surefire way to guarantee marketing results. At Mad 4 Marketing, we offer strategic insight that will allow you to enhance brand awareness and connect deeply with your audience through targeted messaging. To address every agenda–from rebranding your company to engaging in social media or even building a complete 360° campaign–we’ve got the talent and experience to help you achieve impactful, successful marketing.