Young adult members want the products, programs and services that co-ops provide, but they often don’t know about them. Similarly, the values of young adult members closely align with the values of co-ops, but many young adult members don’t understand the cooperative advantage. These deficits represent an opportunity for co-ops to build awareness and strengthen connections with members. Breaking through to reach young adult members in today’s crowded communications landscape requires a robust and disciplined multi-channel strategy. There are three key components of an effective multi-channel strategy:

1. The right message
2. The right channels
3. The right times

1. The Right Message

Delivering the “right” message is all about knowing your members and putting them at the center of the conversation. At a foundational level, members expect timely and helpful communications about core services and timely reporting on outages or problem resolutions. Connecting to your membership through these messages on multiple platforms helps reinforce your commitment to service excellence, a key first step in your journey toward greater member engagement. For example, if you track reliability statistics, sharing this information across your member communications channels is proof positive of your accountability toward your mission to provide reliable electricity. In addition, the research compiled through this project on the values, interest areas, products and services young adult members care about can serve as a guide as you create content for this audience.

As you develop your messaging and communications strategy:

• Remember the power of the community message. Focus on how your co-op programs and activities improve the lives of your members.
• Don’t be afraid to share your co-op accomplishments, advancements and progress across different channels. If you don’t talk about your success, no one will know!
• Commit to cross-channel promotion. Use every opportunity to market how members can connect with you.
  

2. The Right Channel

If you aren’t present on the communications channels where young adult members are, you may be communicating the right message, but your members aren’t seeing it. Reach is the number of members who see your message. Reach plus repetition equals awareness. Are you leveraging content across all available channels, such as your website, email, video, apps, direct mail, social media and in-person events? Unifying your message across multiple channels increases the likelihood of reaching your target audience. If you aren’t sure which channels to prioritize as part of your communication mix, go straight to the source. Ask your young adult members about communication preferences in an annual membership survey or specialized research directed to that audience.

3. The Right Time (aka Repetition)

Research reminds us that many young adults are juggling family, work and community commitments. Young adults generally are not engaged with their co-op, their inboxes are full of competing messages, and even if you have young adults following you, social media algorithms may prevent your messages from showing up in their feed.

Repetition fosters both awareness and trust. To overcome the challenge of reaching busy young adults, apply the Rule of 7. This principle says that an individual needs to see a message at least seven times before they notice it and start to take action. This is standard marketing practice and it makes your job a little easier to repurpose and repeat content across channels and on the same channel. When you schedule a similar message across all of your channels, you’ll gain a cumulative effect. For social media, also vary the time of day you post to reach the largest audience.

Tip: Beware of boredom. If you are doing it right, you may get bored with communicating the same message over and over. Fewer messages repeated more frequently is more effective. And some messages can take years to stick with the member. Repeat your message.

How to Put a Multi-Channel Communication Plan in Place

To ensure you are achieving both reach and effective frequency in your multi-channel strategy, check out the information in the Create Your Communication Plan section.