Connecting with Gen Z: Six tips for credit unions
Financial marketers who want to click with Generation Z must form a clear understanding of who they are, what they aren't, and what makes them tick — and what makes them twitch. A cautious generation that worries constantly about money, Gen Z craves financial guidance. But it only takes advice from those it trusts to be unbiased. Blow that and you're toast.
While there are many things financial marketers should know about Generation Z, the absolute essential is that money stresses this generation more than anything else.
“Money is in short supply for these people and it drives everything they are doing,” says Jim Marous, industry observer.
Generation Z, by one convention, consists of people born between 1997 and 2012, and it has become the largest generation in the world, by population, representing about a third of the world. The older ones are in college and either working part-time or full-time and one thing they share is a focus on savings, because of their money anxiety. Indeed, even though they have just started on adult life, they commonly already think about retirement.
This comes from astute observation. Their parents may be Gen Xers just waking up to the need to save for retirement or possibly even Baby Boomers confronting it. Either way, “they see that retirement is not as stress-free as they would have liked it to be,” says Marous, Co-Publisher of The Financial Brand and Owner/Publisher of the Digital Banking Report. Marous provided opening remarks during a webinar presented by EVERFI and The Financial Brand.
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