Want to reach Millennials? Talk to the Boomers.

In a recent post, we looked at how to evaluate current financial services marketing efforts when it comes to Millennials.  This time around, we’re going to look at alternative positioning that broadens the opportunity.

When it comes to marketing spend against the Millennials, one of the prevalent justifications we hear from financial marketers is that the segment represents the future for a financial institution.  As a result, financial institutions have felt the need to make some sort of effort toward the Millennials for the promise of cultivating future high-value clients.

It’s difficult to create an ROI on that assumption.  But there is a way to start building connections with the Millennials while capitalizing on real opportunities today.  It requires looking beyond specific segments and products and positioning your organization as one focused on multi-generation financial health.

With a multi-generation financial health position, you can reach a Boomer audience that is looking for help today.  Then you can engage the Boomers to reach their Millennial children.  This is exceptionally revelant for two reasons.  First, what parent doesn’t want to help their kids?  Second, “family” consistently ranks as one of the top advice sources for Millennials when it comes to making financial decisions.

People don’t like talking about financial issues.  Even when it comes to parents and their adult children. But begin to break down that barrier and you can help the two generations:

• Understand the wishes and expectations of each other
• Start to identify the issues that may be causing anxiety
• Help create a dialog that can align expectations and even create collaboration towards a goal

The financial partner that takes this position stands to reap the benefits of more engaged and more informed clients.  And as a connector between generations, you just may find that you have more loyal clients.

Of course it takes more than just claiming the position of the multi-generation financial health partner.  It takes real proof.  That comes in the form of great content that offers real value.  Here are three areas where that content comes to life as well as some examples of how it could happen.

1.  Fostering conversation about financial issues and options to address those issues.  Imagine tools that could help Boomer parents and Millennial children understand each other’s goals and dreams, identify the roadblocks that could stand in the way, and discover options and share ideas on how to overcome the obstacles.  Example:  an interactive survey that lets the parents and their children see how each other answered.  And then offers discussion starters based on the answers.

2.  Building collaboration between the generations to work toward a common goal.  Product and service combinations could help promote the collaboration between the generations.  Example: Deploying the technology to allow the Millennial to set a goal (like a down payment for a house), then giving the Boomer parent the ability to designate their credit card cash back reward toward the Millennial’s goal.

3.  Sharing information and knowledge to enrich lives.  You could become the trusted source of high-value content that Boomers and Millennials can access and share.  Example:  Offer articles, videos and tools.  House them in a system that allows the parents and children to organize, share, and comment on the content to drive conversation and collaboration.

These are just a few example of how you can build proof around a multi-generation financial health position.  By encouraging the interaction, you can improve the effectiveness of your marketing while creating better and more loyal clients.

Key takeaways:

• A multi-generation financial health position can help you take advantage of today’s opportunity (Boomers) while laying the groundwork tomorrow’s potential (Millennials).
• Deploying great content provides believable proof that you can provide real value in the lives of your clients.
• Fostering conversation and collaboration helps create better and more loyal clients.