Gen X as a Target Customer – Part Two | Lydia Mehit

Continuing our discussion of Generation X as our target consumer, we have gathered a variety of facts about our subjects and now need to use those facts to answer the following questions.

  1. Why do they buy?
  2. How do they buy?
  3. What do they buy?
  4. Where do they buy?
  5. Where do you find them?
  6. How do you reach them?

Let’s answer the questions using the information we’ve learned about Generation X.

Continue reading “Gen X as a Target Customer – Part Two | Lydia Mehit”

Who Is Generation X? | Lydia Mehit

Many business owners think that EVERYONE is their customer, so they create a coupon, find a monthly delivery system (a coupon magazine or coupon mailer) and hope for the best. But understanding your target customer can give you insights into how to price, how to promote, how to utilize media and what special offers will appeal to them.

Is Generation X the most likely group of people to purchase your goods and services?

How would you know? Start with your current customers. What is the average age of the majority of your customers? Who typically makes the largest purchase during an average visit. Who are return customers?

If you are not in business yet, look at the neighborhoods where you are thinking of locating your business. What is the average age and income of the people in the immediate one mile radius. Check out the three mile radius also. If you have a retail business, the majority of your customers will be local to those areas.

If your answer is Generation X, have you made them the target of your marketing dollars? Do you know how to make your message resonate with them?
Continue reading “Who Is Generation X? | Lydia Mehit”

Linked In’s Reid Hoffman to Millennials – Welcome to the New Feudalism | Peter Mehit

On a recent Tuesday, it was not a good day to be a millennial. They learned that, unlike any previous generation, they are entering their work life with an average of $22,000 of student loan debt. They were told by the HR chief of Intel that their liberal arts degrees (far and away the majority for them) are not valuable enough to stop the outsourcing of jobs offshore. One of their own, a 23 year old running a South Bay non-profit, described her struggles with debt and the bewildering number of jobs she’s held in the brief interval since graduation. All of this coming before Reid Hoffman, one of the founders of Linked In, declared that ‘…careers are dead’ and that they should expect to be employed as freelancers their entire working lives.

At a conference hosted by the Atlantic monthly, the National Journal and Allstate Insurance entitled “Millennials in the Next Economy” at UCLA, we learned some interesting facts about this generation who are 92 million strong. They are the most diverse generation ever: 40% are minorities. 28% are college graduates, making them the best educated (in terms of degrees, at least) of any previous generation, with 42% currently in school. 26% are seeking employment. Politicians should note that 72% are registered to vote and 39% believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.

But the one statistic that I found most interesting is, despite the economic collapse and the situation they find themselves in, 60% believe that they are in control of their own destinies, that their decisions will primarily decide the outcome of their lives.
Continue reading “Linked In’s Reid Hoffman to Millennials – Welcome to the New Feudalism | Peter Mehit”