True or false:
- One in three people in the United States is non-white—in fact, white people will constitute the nation’s minority population by the year 2041.
- Since the 1960s, the proportion of married individuals between the ages of 25 and 34 has dropped from 80% to 45%.
- The “married with children” nuclear family now accounts for only 22% of American households.
If you answered “true” for all of the above, you’re correct—and you probably already realize that serious demographic shifts will be dramatically transforming your business practices for years to come.
During her presentation at the Big “I” Legislative Conference in April, Kelly McDonald, president of McDonald Marketing and best-selling author of “How to Market to People Not Like You,” shared these surprising statistics and addressed their implications head-on. “Who do you think your future customer is going to be?” she asked. “Who do you think your future co-worker is going to be? You are going to have minority customers. That’s a fact. That is the face of the population going forward.”
It’s an assessment that applies to not only race and ethnicity, but family composition and lifestyle, as well. “You’ve got an entire generation of young people who were raised by all different kinds of families,” McDonald said. “Blended families, merged families, single parents, divorced parents, step-parents, gay parents, grandparents, people who aren’t their parents—that doesn’t matter. For this generation, the only definition of family that matters is who do you love who loves you back?”
Here are three ways to take these numbers to heart at your agency—and reap the business benefits down the road.
Reflect demographic shifts at your agency. More minority customers will require new skills from agency staff members—which means it’s crucial to incorporate a diversity strategy into your day-to-day operations. “Customers might need more financial education from you, particularly if they’re foreign-born,” McDonald said. “Bilingual and multilingual staff are absolutely going to become mandatory for survival.”
Gender diversity at the agency level will be equally important, especially as the number of female business owners continues to rise. “When women come to the table in business, we tend to bring with us very high customer service standards,” McDonald said. “We place a lot of strong trust in other women, even if it’s women we don’t know.”
And don’t sell young people short—McDonald says to keep an eye out for an increasing pool of Gen Y entrepreneurs and young talent. “These folks are saying, 'I’m smart, I’ve got a great idea, I’ve got hustle, I’m going to work hard, I’ve got a great social network,'” she said. But they’ll expect a workplace that can offer what McDonald called a “progressive view on management” in exchange for what they have to offer.
Ditch your misconceptions. Whether you’re harboring stereotypes about millennial irresponsibility or what it means to maintain a professional appearance, it’s time to change with the times. Young people might be postponing marriage—“they’re skeptical about marriage, and for good reason—more than half come from divorced parents,” McDonald said—but that doesn’t mean they’re waiting to have children.
“There’s not a lot of stigma in having a baby outside marriage anymore,” McDonald said. “‘Family’ is becoming redefined. If the vast majority of people do not fit into this definition of ‘family’ anymore, then don’t we have to think about how to redefine ‘family’ for the financial services industry?”
According to McDonald, we do—and that means insurance marketing messages have to change. “We’re all drawn to images that look like ourselves—that’s why every image you will ever see for retirement always shows grey-haired people,” McDonald explained. But based on contemporary marketing imagery, you’d never guess that 40% of people ages 18-35 have four or more tattoos, McDonald pointed out.
“If 40% of an entire generation looks like that, at some point wouldn’t you want to start showing imagery of people with tattoos in your marketing pieces?” McDonald asked. “Why wouldn’t you start to reflect the people who are buying your products and services?”
Remember: helping beats selling. In today’s digital age, the last thing consumers want is for companies and brands to throw more information their way. “There’s this thing called the Internet, and it’s got more information than I could ever consume in my lifetime,” McDonald said. “What I need is advice. And that’s exactly where insurance professionals live.”
In a time when the consumer feels more self-empowered than ever before, anybody can take the initiative to go educate themselves—but that doesn’t mean they know what to do with the information when they find it.
“They need breadth of experience,” McDonald said. “They need your expertise. They need you to say, ‘Based on my experience and what I’ve seen, somebody in your position needs this—this would be the best protection for you and your family.’ Give me information, but interpret that information. Be my trusted guide.”
Jacquelyn Connelly is IA senior editor.
