Ruhani Rabin
4 min readJan 17, 2019

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Every product has an audience. If you’re selling lawn mowers, you target the men. If you’re selling mascara, you target the women. Some services are sold to older individuals, and other services are sold to renters. To do well in any business, you need to know how to advertise and how to do it well. Advertising can connect you to people who can help your company or product progress further. The key is finding out how to connect to those people.

For certain age groups, some types of advertising are perfect, and others won’t work as well. You have to narrow down which group you want to target and then find out how to target them. For example, Walmart targets their advertising towards families and parents since their products and prices draw in new or growing families.

They advertise on TV shows where families are likely to see the ads. Hanson Robotics, the creators of the AI Sophia, advertise their robotics skills to potential investors overseas through conferences and interviews. The type of advertising that you should use varies drastically depending on the audience that you want to draw in. To better explain which styles and options of advertising you should use in your own company, here is an explanation of each group of people and how to best catch their attention.

Grabbing the Attention of a Millenial

To start, what exactly is a millennial? The textbook definition would say that they are the group born between 1981 and 1996. Anyone born after that is considered “Generation Z.”

Millennials mostly are described with negative characteristics. They’re called lazy, narcissistic, and just want to travel the world. They need a lot of “me” time and demand flexible hours in the workplace. They believe in individuality more than anything else and are extremely “techy.” This is the generation that you’ll find with their faces pressed up against a phone screen.

Of course, like any stereotype, not every person born in that generation fits into that grouping. They can also be tech savvy in a way that puts them forward in life, and they are extremely driven in the things that they enjoy.

There are some common things among the majority–there’s one main way that they respond to advertising. This group responds poorly to the ads in the newspaper or ads in a magazine. The best way to reach them is through social media advertising. Social media platforms allow for an easy way to get ahold of the attention of the buyers. Since most millennials spend a significant amount of time on social media, you’re almost guaranteed that they will see your advertisement.

From there, you have two options for the style of your advertisement. You should either make the ad flashy and joking or have muted colors and serious. Millennials are either attracted to ads that are out of the box or those that are professional to the point of being romantic.

Understanding the Family

The next common group of people that are targeted for ads is the family demographic. This includes mothers, fathers, young children, and teenagers. Every product in this group can be used by the whole family and is considered “family friendly.” For example, although mascara will be used by the mom and the daughters in the family, it wouldn’t be considered “family friendly” since it’s not advertised to the men in the family. A board game or a puzzle, on the other hand, fits perfectly in this category.

These advertisements do best on TV shows that families commonly watch with their kids as well as in Blogs that the mothers will read. By doing this, you get the product into the places that they are most likely to visit or read. The ads should show how it will help the family draw closer together, how it will benefit the organization or cleanliness of the home, or how it will help the children to have more fun. The ad should show the family as a whole and talk about the benefits of the product.

Selling to the Salesman

The next group of people is the businessman or the business women. These people think logically before buying and consider the money before they spend it. They understand the market and know how to successfully get promoted through internal recruitment. They are practical and stingy and need to be convinced that the product is worth their time before they spend the money to invest in it.

In a way, you need to learn how to sell to the salesman. Your tactics have to be subtle because most businessmen and businessmen know the tricks of the game. Rather than contacting them through door-to-door sales or through cold calls over the phone, contact them in ways so that they don’t realize they’re being sold.

This means putting ads on news sites that they will commonly look at or on top business websites. Put the ads in plain sight and never be pushy about it. Since they know the tricks of advertising, they know how to say “no, thank you.” This means that you can never ask if they’re interested. Make the ad about how much they need the product so that they won’t even consider turning it down.

Advertisements are vital if you want to grow your business, gain loyal customers, and succeed. However, they have to be done well, and you have to be aware of the needs and tendencies of the group that you’re advertising to. You should ensure that you and your employees do the research needed before you advertise to your target group.

Originally posted at RuhaniRabin.com
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Ruhani Rabin

Ruhani Rabin being a tech and product evangelist for two decades. He was VP, GM, CPO for various digital companies. Obsessed with Generative AI now.