theLAB

via ClickBooth’s Affiliate Marketing Blog » Don’t Forget About the Youth Market.

I saw this from a person who markets to Gen Y for sales purposes. He mentions in his article these four things to keep in mind in selling to Gen Y. They seem valuable for us to heed as well:

1. You don’t need to talk like them if in real life you don’t. Gen-Y was brought up with slang being a common part of their pop culture, where text messages many contain little to no words that Webster tells us is proper for the English language. However, if you are selling something professional, keep it professional. You can loosen up, but beware that the young generation can spot out phony advertising; fake campaigns and read through your non-authenticity. Gen-Y will respect your honestly vs. your attempt to be cool.
2. Use video. YouTube continues phenomenal growth, with billions of views every month. 12 Seconds is one of the fastest growing start-ups in the valley. What these sites do, is plays off of Gen-Y’s short attention span. 3 minute shorts and 12 second clips are dominating our society. Put a face to your offer, talk about it genuinely and have it thrown into the mix of messages that Gen-Y checks out in between segments of Family Guy and Guitar Hero.
3. Gen-Y loves them some video games. Find a cheap flash programmer and make a video to attract attention. Have them sign up to receive your offers as well as bonus levels and free updates. It’s a great way to get them talking about your company, interacting with your product and passing it along with hands off marketing.
4. Offer products in deeply segmented groups. With your Gen-Y prospects, it is extremely important to segment your lists into deep, drilled down lists. The more targeted you get the better. They are so accustomed to seeing thousands, upon thousands of ads, product offers, etc that if you are not in the right place at the right time, you can bet they have their blinders on full blast. Word.

This is alternative way to do something like what we saw Common Craft did with their instructional videos.

I was surprised by this. It is very well done and it comes from our friends upstairs. It is about a subject of interest to you and me as well. Please take a look.

This is another way I would love to serve our mission in presenting information and reporting.

CardStore Website

I have used a service for years to send out cards and specifically thank you notes to friends. That service shifted their business and discontinued the services that I used. They referred users like me to a new company called cardstore.com. A flat 7×5 card is $1.29. Their customer support told me that they will be coming out with a 4×5 card shortly that will take the postcard postage and be slightly cheaper. What I like about the service is that I am able to send a high quality card to my friends, but not spend any time on production. You might give it a look.

Cardstore.com

Our morning meetings continue to feel profitable in moving us forward both with our processes as well as our morale. Today we spent time thoroughly going over setting up a project in ActiveColab. Doug has created a wiki page for our Catalyst’s to refer to as they enter projects into ActiveColab. So even this step in our process is being documented (thank God for Doug). Training for the rest of us will happen so that we can ensure robust communication surrounds our projects and informs all parties concerned. Perhaps the best part of these morning meetings is our prayer time. We are praying for you and our work.

It is great to work with you all. I will try and blog more to keep you in the know.