The Digital Dilemma: Adapting to Multi-Generational Audiences

Brandi Starr [00:00:35]:
Hello and welcome to another episode of Revenue Rehab. I am your host, Brandy Star and we have another amazing episode for you today. I am joined by Emmanuel Rose. Emmanuel is a recognized expert in lead generation, branding, advertising and the day to day operations of a digital agency ready to help you build your business. Today as the CEO of Strategic E Marketing, Emanuel is at the forefront of driving digital solutions with machine learning for lead generation. Emanuel's book, Authenticity Marketing to Generation Z focuses on how companies can effectively market to Generation Z by being authentic and transparent in their branding and messaging. Emmanuel, welcome to Revenue Rehab. Your session begins now.

Emmanuel Rose [00:01:29]:
Outstanding. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

Brandi Starr [00:01:33]:
I am excited to have you and we have an amazing topic today. But before we jump into that, I like to break the ice with a little woosa moments that I call buzzword banishment. So tell me, what overused buzzword would you like to get rid of forever?

Emmanuel Rose [00:01:54]:
Make my marketing go viral?

Brandi Starr [00:01:57]:
Ah, yes. I think viral has been banished a few times because I think anybody that knows anything about marketing hates that term. Because you can't make anything go viral.

Emmanuel Rose [00:02:12]:
Right. And it kind of gets. It just goes against the grain of good marketing. Right. Like your ICP is, is not necessarily viral. It could just be 10 people or 30 people or one person.

Brandi Starr [00:02:26]:
Yeah. And that, you know, especially in B2B, it really cracks me up because, you know, on the consumer side, I can see some benefit in all the buzz that happens with things that go viral. But on the B2B side, it's like just a bunch of random people looking at your stuff. It doesn't help move the needle in one way or another. And it's not always good.

Emmanuel Rose [00:02:50]:
No, it's no van. It's a vanity thing. And, and it's a. It's a. It's just a funny, shiny object that people want to. Want to participate in.

Brandi Starr [00:02:59]:
Yes. Well, I can promise I will not talk about making anything go viral today. And so now that we've gotten that off our chest, tell me what brings you to Revenue Rehab today?

Emmanuel Rose [00:03:11]:
Well, I'm. I'm excited to talk about marketing and marketing to Generation Z. I was gonna.

Brandi Starr [00:03:19]:
Say that one is a hard one. I realize Gen Z started as like those people who were Born right after I got out of high school. And although I feel like I just graduated, in all actuality, that was a long time ago. And you know, we've got a significant portion of them in the workforce now. So before we really dive into how we accomplish this, I believe in setting intentions. It gives us focus, it gives us purpose, and most important, it gives our audience an understanding of what they should expect from our discussion today. So what's your best hope? What would you like people to take away from the discussion that they're gonna.

Emmanuel Rose [00:04:06]:
Build their marketing campaigns around video that is produced with the, the CEO or the leader of their organization and, and let that be the, the hub that all the other spokes of marketing come from.

Brandi Starr [00:04:22]:
Ah, interesting. I, you know, let's, before we get there, because I am very intrigued by the specificity of that takeaway. So let's just talk about Gen Z for a little bit. I saw statistically that by, you know, in 2025, Gen Z is going to make up 27% of the workforce and that's going to continue to increase as more of the boomers start to retire. And so, you know, and just thinking about some of the, the typical facts of Gen Z, first, first generation that is considered fully digital, they have different ideas around, you know, what the workplace and workforce should look like. So talk to me about marketing to them. Why do we need to think about Gen Z as decision makers differently than we have other generations?

Emmanuel Rose [00:05:22]:
Well, like you said, they're the, they're a unique segment in, in the marketplace, not just in the United States, but really globally as the first fully digital generation. Like not knowing a day without Internet and a mobile phone. So that is some sophistication because of that and then there's some slowness because of that also. But the sophistication is they've seen every piece of marketing that, that the silverbacks that we are, have, have produced. And so they, they can sniff out inauthentic or salesy or bad marketing very quickly. Not, not the least of which because they have a very small, short attention span. So this, this phenomenon of tick tock brain or the 2.6 seconds that you have to get a message in front of this, these types of people is a reality. And, and it's not just them.

Emmanuel Rose [00:06:25]:
We're all getting much shorter attention spans of, we have a shorter attention span than Goldfish at this point. Literally.

Brandi Starr [00:06:32]:
Yeah, and you know, I, I definitely see that. And I mean I even think about, you know, you talked about video a bit when video first became Popular. I can remember watching a 6, 7, 10 minute video was common.

Emmanuel Rose [00:06:51]:
Yeah.

Brandi Starr [00:06:51]:
And now even myself I'm like, oh, it's longer than three minutes. Like either I'm gonna put it on 2x speed or I'm gonna abandon altogether because I'm like I, I don't have time for that. And you know, sometimes I wonder whether it is that we're all stretched thin in terms of time or, or whether it's attention span. But so we talked about some of the sophistication. What are those drawbacks that we are seeing those blind spots that Gen Z has as well?

Emmanuel Rose [00:07:21]:
Due to a number of things, they're slower to develop in terms of life stages. Like if you think about what you were doing when you were 25, what I was doing when I was 25, you know, I, I had a full time job, I had started my own business, I was living in an apartment in a big city. I was completely separate financially from my parents. This group tends to be more of the, still under the, the, the guidance and finance of their parents versus being completely independent. So they're just, they're slower to take on these life stages, you know, Covid economies, whatever, all these things that contribute to that. But that's just a, a general fact.

Brandi Starr [00:08:11]:
Okay. And so you know, I think where I see some of the sort of obvious differences in marketing is on more of the consumer brand side and there's some very clear things that you know, I see them do where I think there is a little bit more uncertainty is on the business to business side as we are starting to see Gen Z be more of a part of the decision making, you know, the buying committee. Yeah. What are some of the considerations for B2B marketers in thinking about the fact that they definitely buy differently. So what are some of the things we need to think about in those differences?

Emmanuel Rose [00:08:59]:
The first thing is, and it's going to sound funny when I say it, but we have to be digital first. Like we have to have, have it be highly consumable digital assets that walk. This person who is an early age executive, junior executive and not very experienced, but has typically have a very high opinion of themselves. And so you're kind of dealing with two of the biggest challenges there in terms of sales and marketing. Right. Somebody doesn't know a lot, but they think they know a lot. So you've got to walk them through this process and educate them. We know now that it takes 6 hours, 32 touches with a in a B2B sale to get completion.

Emmanuel Rose [00:09:48]:
So they're very smart as a group, they're very committed to education and if they're into something, they're going to dig deep in it. So you've got to have a lot of stair stepping in through that content journey in order to make sure they have enough. The other thing we know is speed to lead and I, I know you probably know this is 84% of the people who are the first vendor that is contacted, they are the vendor that is ultimately contracted. So first contacted first con and then contracted and then we have five minutes from when they show interest to when that lead starts to deteriorate and turn into not a viable lead. So we have to be able to be very dynamic, very personalized and very educational in the B2B sales for these junior executives.

Brandi Starr [00:10:45]:
Yeah, and that's really interesting because you know, it's like I think about years ago when I talked about the number of touches. Like I remember when seven was the number and you know, like the, the way that we developed nurtures and our overall strategy was how do we get to those seven touches? And I can remember a time having to think through the content that was required to support 7. Thinking about 32 touches and 6 hours of consumption over that.

Emmanuel Rose [00:11:20]:
Yes.

Brandi Starr [00:11:21]:
Can feel quite overwhelming. And even the thought process of 5 minutes, like I can remember sales SLAs were 24 hours or even 72 hours for some of those larger sales. So to say five minutes, it, you know, it's like it all feels very overwhelming. And so I want to ground our discussion in why we've got to tackle this and why this is important. Because some people would say if only 27% of the workforce is Gen Z, that means that percentage is even smaller in terms of the decision makers. This is a problem for the future and not for today.

Emmanuel Rose [00:12:06]:
Yeah.

Brandi Starr [00:12:06]:
And so what do you say to those people that are, are like I don't have the resources, the capacity, the whatever to solve for this right now.

Emmanuel Rose [00:12:16]:
It's like they say the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. So you're looking at 68 million people that will be entering the workforce from Gen Z over the next next decade. So we've gotta, we've got to build systems and processes now. You don't have to eat the whole elephant all at once, but you've got to start, start building, building these systems that are highly responsive, highly dynamic, highly personalized and provide a lot of under the hood views and anticipate with good marketing what that client needs to Self educate, that's not changing. And in a lot of ways that's no different than it has been. Yeah, the number of touches is bigger, I give you that. And that it can seem overwhelming, but we have so many more awesome tools at our disposal to take content like this and turn it into 64 pieces of touches.

Emmanuel Rose [00:13:25]:
Right. So it takes a little bit of a reframe. And for those of us that are Gen X and baby boomers, we got to wrap our heads around making that change or mandating that change in our organizations.

Brandi Starr [00:13:38]:
Yeah. And it is definitely one of those things. Like I know I prefer preach a lot internally about being able to repurpose and scale content. Because when you think about, if we think about 32, and I'll just say for 32 touches, 32 pieces of content, for simple math, if we think about that the way that we used to develop content.

Emmanuel Rose [00:13:58]:
Right.

Brandi Starr [00:13:59]:
It becomes almost impossible. It's like 32 is all I got. But you are right, the, you know, between AI and all the different mediums that we have, we do have the ability to take things and to scale them. So I think that grounds us in why this is important because I do agree it is happening more and more and I find that companies struggle a lot to pivot and the types of things that are people are engaging with and the way that we think about it, you know, I think about content that used to be considered bottom of the funnel. Now, you know, this generation is looking more at the top. Like they're because of things like Yelp and Google reviews and you know, TripAdvisor. Like they're starting with testimonials and case studies as opposed to ending with it. You know, for the older generation, they.

Emmanuel Rose [00:14:54]:
Start with the ugc. I mean, that's the brutal part. They don't just want influencers like Kylie Jenner and Jake Paul. They, they want their best friend to be their influencer too.

Brandi Starr [00:15:05]:
Yeah. And, and that is one of the things that I think that a lot of older marketers, I hate to like put it on an age thing, but you know, us old timers, I do think that that is the place where just working with different companies that they're not making that adjustment whether it's looking at lead scoring or where they are passing things over to sales. Like the process is very, very different. Are you seeing the same things?

Emmanuel Rose [00:15:40]:
Process is very, very different. And, and we're in, we're in that challenging time, especially on the B2B side. We have this multi generational sales process. And so you're talking about, you got Boomers, X, Millennials and Z's all in the same marketplace. So you're not just talking about repurposing. You're talking about rebranding for four different, completely different types of buyers.

Brandi Starr [00:16:05]:
Yeah. And let's, let's talk practically about what does that look like? Because I definitely like thinking about, you know, different opportunities that I've been a part of or looking at analyzing certain client data. You really do see multi generations in a single opportunity as influencing the sales. And so when you talk about, you know, rebranding content and how we cater across them help paint the picture for me of what does that look like?

Emmanuel Rose [00:16:37]:
Well, it starts with, you know, we always start with the ideal client profile. And then we go, especially in B2B, then we go to that content journey, and we know it's a committee. It's usually three to eight people on that buying committee. Right. And that's the other way that modern B2B sales has gotten complicated is that it's not just the CEO or the. The sales director making the decision. It's a. It's this group.

Emmanuel Rose [00:17:02]:
So you've got to understand who, who's in that committee and then start to reframe. Okay, I have a podcast blog post, and do I take that and then build that into six memes that will be interesting into the Millennial and. And Z group, or do I take and take. Build that into a Tik Tok campaign or Tik Tok ad campaign. Right. So it just, you. You have to start to move the pieces and the channels based on the committee and the age group that they are, and you can guarantee you're going to be selling into all four of those age groups. And so you should take the time in advance to chart that out, take that piece of content and then rehab it or, or refurb it for each of those groups.

Emmanuel Rose [00:17:55]:
That's. That's how I'd approach it.

Brandi Starr [00:17:57]:
Yeah. And I think the key thing that that makes me think about is, you know, historically we have only been marketing to that person that is directly like that main contact for an opportunity. But now that whole buying committee, even though, you know, it's kind of. They talk about dark funnel, like the buying committee mainly is a part of the dark funnel. So it is one of those things that we've got to be providing all the content that speaks to all of those different generations and types of buyers, even when they're not, we don't know that they are directly engaged with us. And I know that can be a really difficult component as well.

Emmanuel Rose [00:18:44]:
Yeah. And then in the direct consumer realm, you have to look at. At the Z as the influencer to the Gen X mom or the millennial mom or millennial dad. So you've got to have cool factor, you know, UGC influencer style for the Z. And then you've got to have a little more traditional standard marketing for the parents in that situation. Right. Because you have two targets.

Brandi Starr [00:19:09]:
Yeah, that. That is definitely a great point. Now, I want to transition a little bit and talk about branding and messaging. And I know in your book, authenticity and transparency are two things that you talk about as being really important. Can you share a bit more of your perspective on that?

Emmanuel Rose [00:19:34]:
Well, these. This group demands authenticity, and that almost is the one of your buzzwords that we have to kill. Even though it's the title of my book, I'll accept that there's. I haven't found a replacement word for it yet. So that's the challenge. But they demand this transparency or this humanness of the brand. Right. This is a group that grew up on Kylie Jenner, and seeing her in her bathroom putting on makeup and talking about every boyfriend and crying over every, you know, dropped Starbucks cup.

Emmanuel Rose [00:20:11]:
So this level of intimacy is what they expect. And. And that is the biggest challenge for those of us who are not from that generation. I, when I grew up in business, when I was a kid in my 20s, you kept your personal life personal and your business lives in business. Right. The lines are a little more blurred now. And, and they want to know, what do you believe in? What's your family like? How are you spending your weekends? What do you like about your employees? What do you. What.

Emmanuel Rose [00:20:45]:
What's great about the clients that you work with? Oh, yeah. And by the way, you have a product, too, that they might be interested in, but they want to know you as a human being first. And. And so you've got to follow some of that in your content.

Brandi Starr [00:20:58]:
Yeah. And I know that just from talking to other leaders with Gen X, and especially Boomers, that has been one of the key struggles, because, you know, I can remember, like, LinkedIn was very strictly professional only, you know, sharing anything personal was, like, super taboo. And now that line is, you know, it's not quite like Facebook blurred, but it is very, you know, it's very personal and very human. And the ability to research the leaders of a company and actually find out about them is something that's also important to Generation Zone, which I find interesting. And a lot of the older generations really sort of Push back against that in not wanting to put themselves out there, you know, like, I mean, I've heard people who have taken pride in not being searchable. Like, you can't find much about them when you search them. And it's like, you know, to like, I get it. But at the same time, it is, like, now actually becoming a part of the decision criteria 100.

Emmanuel Rose [00:22:15]:
And to me, there's no. It's like being a wagon wheel maker. Yeah, okay, that's cool. You do that, but you're no longer relevant. And so your, Your. Your. Your digital score, your digital, digital presence needs to be maintained at a level that's professional and manicured and. And revealing as much as you're comfortable revealing.

Emmanuel Rose [00:22:38]:
And the more that you're able to talk about what you do when you're not working is. Is equally as important as what you. What you are doing when you're working.

Brandi Starr [00:22:49]:
Yeah. And I, you know, I, I am. What do they call it? Xenial, where I'm right on the cusp. Like, I'm technically Gen X, but very on the cusp of Millennial. And so I've been a lot more comfortable with social media and, you know, having an online presence and those sorts of things. And I have actually seen that come up in both our sales cycle as well as our hiring process where people are like, oh, yeah, you know, I saw you were on vacation, you know, in this place. I've been wanting to go there. And it's because I have a public Instagram where, you know, it is curated.

Brandi Starr [00:23:29]:
I don't put my entire life there, but you get a lot of who I am as an individual outside of work. And it really has come up in those scenarios where people feel this personal connection and therefore wanting to either work for us or work with us as. As a service provider.

Emmanuel Rose [00:23:51]:
Yep. Yeah. You know, the old sales axiom about we want to do business with people we know like and trust. Well, we build that personal brand digitally now as much as we do in person. So, yeah, that's a great example of that.

Brandi Starr [00:24:07]:
So I want to get back to what you talked about at the beginning. Video produced by a leader, and that that be the center in which all your other content is developed. So talk to me some more about this, because I definitely hear video all the time. I hear putting your leaders, you know, out front. But the way that you phrase that is a little bit unique. So I definitely love to have you expand on that.

Emmanuel Rose [00:24:35]:
Yeah, you bet. I. I think if we look at like, we. I was talking about earlier we look at Jake Paul, we look at Kylie Jenner, we look at Elon Musk, right? Those are the social CEOs, those are billionaires or billionaires in the making. And, and so we need to emulate what they're doing. And that's what I talked about in a book called the Social Media Edge, which was we all have to be the primary influencer for our brand as the leader of the company. Company and emulate these people who are, who are the rock stars of business right now. And then to follow a very simple process which is 90 seconds on Monday morning, 8am you're going to talk about a fundraiser that you went to.

Emmanuel Rose [00:25:22]:
You're going to talk about your family, you're going to talk about your employee of the week, you're going to talk about your customer of the week or you're going to talk about product, one of those things. Every Monday, 90 seconds, shoot it on the iPhone, send it to the marketing department and build this content from video that then we know repurposes in these 64 things the Gary Vaynerchuk style. And your marketing department will love you for it. Number one, as the leader of the business and number two, you're laying down that foundation of being a humanized brand which is the differentiator that we have now as small and mid sized businesses in the age of AI because there's an avalanche of options out there and it's been, it's harder and harder to find human brands in, in this time, in this avalanche.

Brandi Starr [00:26:16]:
Yeah, and I definitely agree. It's, you know, there's several people I follow on LinkedIn who are kind of do this spot the AI kind of thing because there are, there is so much out there that is clearly AI developed with very little human input. And although I, you know, definitely a big advocate use AI every day but there it is very easy to allow the technology to remove the, the human angle in there. So thinking about advice. So for, you know, we talking about our challenges is just the first step and nothing changes if nothing changes. And so in traditional therapy the therapist gives the client some homework but here at Revenue Rehab we like to flip that on its head and ask you to give us some homework. So for those listening who are recognizing that their efforts in reaching Gen Z are probably not where they need to be, what's your one thing? What advice would you give as the first action to help move in the.

Emmanuel Rose [00:27:23]:
Right direction would be do exactly what we're doing here and become a podcast guest and talk about your company, your processes Your services you as a professional and get very comfortable talking about that and being engaging as a podcast guest with the goal of being able to be that social CEO.

Brandi Starr [00:27:47]:
I love it and I definitely advocate for that. You know, being a podcast host, I think finding guests is always the hardest part. So getting more people out there, I'm always in. But no, in all seriousness, I do agree that that is a great way to really get exposure to audiences that are not those that are already paying attention to your company and being able. You know, we talk about social selling and founder led selling and all sorts of other buzzwords, but at the end of the day, having the leaders of the organization be front and center, putting that message out into the world does go a long way. And I think it goes a long way with all generations. So I think that becomes a win win as well.

Emmanuel Rose [00:28:36]:
Yeah, I mean, think back to iconic brands and you know, Ray Kroc for McDonald's and you know, you can track all these, these rock stars of business but we, we have the tools and the capability now to do it as a small, small solopreneur, small business, midsize business. It's stuff philosophical change that has to. Change has to, has to be switched.

Brandi Starr [00:28:59]:
So and my very last question, because I just thought about this, how do you address turnover? Because this is something that I've seen a number of large companies have hesitation with. You know, really, whether it's the CEO or other executives really having those spaces out front, is there is always a risk that they will leave or be let go? What do you say to that? Like, how do you help to minimize that risk or do you just not worry about it?

Emmanuel Rose [00:29:32]:
Well, I think we all, we all know there's, there's transition times, right. And either people age out or they philosophy out of organizations. And the reality is that the leader is the, is the primary philosophical source. Right. Even. Even if it's from a board of directors, they're the, the primary philosopher or the leader. So it's just, it's just the natural part of it and, and you have to just manage it. No way around it.

Brandi Starr [00:30:09]:
Okay. Yeah. So basically we can't worry about it.

Emmanuel Rose [00:30:12]:
Yeah.

Brandi Starr [00:30:13]:
Well, Emmanuel, I have enjoyed our discussion, but that's our time for today. But before we go, tell our audience how to connect with you and definitely do the shameless plug. Tell us about what your company does.

Emmanuel Rose [00:30:29]:
Sure. Yeah. You can find me by googling Emmanuel Rose or going on Amazon looking for Emanuel Rose or going to strategic emarketing.com and I, I've been running for the last 15 years a full service digital marketing agency. And we have clients that are both B2B and B2C and love to have a conversation about marketing to Gen Z or implementing AI in the into your marketing processes.

Brandi Starr [00:31:00]:
Awesome. Well, I appreciate you taking the time to join me. I have definitely enjoyed this discussion.

Emmanuel Rose [00:31:07]:
Thank you so much, Brandy. I've really enjoyed it myself.

Brandi Starr [00:31:10]:
I hope everyone has enjoyed my conversation with Emanuel. I can't believe we're at the end. Until next time. Bye Bye.