<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=520757221678604&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Kathryn Fisher

By: Kathryn Fisher on August 4th, 2017

Print/Save as PDF

Millennials vs. Associations: Less is More

Email Marketing | Lead Generation & Growth Strategies | Change Management | Blog

mailto:demo@example.com?Subject=HighRoad Solutions - interesting article

My friends always have a hard time understanding what it is exactly I do; so I always start by asking, “Do you have a required certification you need for your job?”

And I’d say 30% of the time the answer is yes but if the answer is no, then I have to go down another path of questions: “Are you a member of an honor society? Are you a member of a professional organization? Have you heard of the NRA?” 

9 times out of 10 this will get me a yes, so from there I ask if they have ever received an email from one of these places, etc.

feedback-2463927_640.jpg

This past weekend, I was with some friends who happened to answer yes to the first question and boy was I ecstatic!  It is so rare to find people in my age group who are members of an association, so I didn’t waste any time and got right to business asking questions. 

*They asked I not use names of their associations because they didn’t quite understand my motive but I can give you demographics:

Three people, all millennials, two male and one female, all single, not living at home, all certification memberships.

The conversation went like so:

Me: “So you have to have these certifications for work?”

Them: “Yes”

Me: “Does your work pay for it”

              Them: One said yes and the other two said no

Me: “Do you find value in it?”

Them: All of them rolled their eyes at me and said, “the only value is I get to keep my job” to which I rolled my eyes at in return.

Me: “What stuff do you take advantage of”

This question caused a long confused pause so I had to elaborate…”Clearly, you need to keep up with the certifications but your memberships come with other things, do you ever take advantage of those?”

Them: Again a long pause, and one finally asked “what do you mean they offer other things; what else do they offer?”

This sparked another whole conversation where I tried to explain the other values associations offered which brings me to my point of this week’s blog; less is more.   

              **Did you know: the general population (not just millennials) have an attention span of that less than a goldfish, which currently is said to have a 9 second attention span?  Humans are at 8!

After I explained the value piece and goal of associations, I think they got bored of me but I managed to pull them back in by asking: “Do you ever check out any of the emails they send you? Look at any of the events? Take advantage of professional development programs?”

One of the guys at that point replied: “I didn’t know they had that.” To which I asked: “Don’t you get the emails they send you?”

He said: “I get like 5 a day and honestly, I can’t tell which ones are important and which ones aren’t so I mostly delete them all.”

I about jumped out of my seat saying, “THAT’S WHAT I AM TRYING TO HELP THEM UNDERSTAND!!!!” And I went into explaining my blog and how I am trying to get associations to better target us as a generation because it seems like most millennials don’t get it; and just like that the flood gates opened and I struck gold…

Guy one: “So you help associations send out all of those emails we get?”

                            Me: “Yes, that is correct as well as a few other things but yes…”

Guy one: “Ok, then can you start by telling them to stop sending me so many emails…”

I cut him off and said: “Well they do have information that they are required to send you and then some of it is information, some are promotions, etc. so they have to send you some email.”

Guy one: “Fine, then can you tell them to do better at letting me know which emails are important for me to read vs. which ones are just informational.”

Only girl: “Yea seriously, I mean look how quickly we scroll through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram; we want to be able to scroll quickly and know what we should read, what is extra and what is junk.”

                            Me: “I hear you, I mean we fight the battle everyday with emails that are too long.”

Guy two: “Look at twitter though, it is limited to a short number of characters and people get their point across in there. Can’t you tell them to like bottom line it, add some pictures and keep it to bullet points.”

Guy one: “Yea! Like I want to know in the first few seconds what it is I am looking at to know if I should go on or not.”

While I have spoken to many people about this, it was funny to hear the things associations debate about everyday being said to me, from people who didn’t even really understand what it is I do.  So while I would like to add my normal smart-aleck commentary, I think this week I am going to just leave it straight from the mouths of other millennials.