Millennials, now aged 25-39 years, are the first digitally-native generation. They have been raised on technology—fed by social media and continuously hooked onto their smartphones.
Love them or hate them, they cannot be ignored with forecasted spending of $1.4 trillion in 2020 in the US alone. They are, without doubt, the biggest emerging opportunity for marketers.
Millennials have puzzled marketers’ due to two main reasons
- They lack brand loyalty
- They value experiences more than status
As their buying power continues to grow, it has become an ever-increasing challenge for Marketers to find a breakthrough into this segment.
With a wide range of demographics, hobbies and values and a population exceeding 80 million in the US alone, how should businesses market to such a large and diverse group?
To help you win over this tough crowd, here’s a clear and concise follow-through on what and what not to focus on when trying to develop a millennial-based marketing plan.
1) Get on social media
Millennials love social media, with over 90% of millennials aged 18-29 being active social media users.
A study undertaken by Forbes stated that 62% say that they are more likely to become a customer if that brand interacts and engages with them on social media.
If you aren’t putting the time and effort into social media marketing, you risk losing out on tons of sales.
Producing engaging content on social media is one of the best ways to generate brand involvement. Millennials are much more likely to buy from you if you interact with them, with 80% of millennials wanting brands to entertain them. Just being in the social sphere isn’t enough — you have to communicate with your audience effectively.
When done correctly, your Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram channels would make each customer feel special.
Here are several tactics you can use:
- Loyalty programs for fans – 3% of millennials are more likely to make purchases when they are part of a loyalty program.
- Engage with customer comments – If brand communication is seen as “human,” customers are 1.6 times more likely to make a purchase and 1.8 times more likely to recommend that particular brand.
- Encourage user-generated content by featuring it on your own channels- Millennials believe that UGC is 50% more trustworthy and 35% more memorable than branded content.
Over the long term, this will earn the trust and respect of your consumers, and transforming them into loyal customers.
2) Dare to be Original
Who enjoys repeated retargeting and irrelevant ads? We don’t, and neither do the Millennials. This demographic is great at identifying cliché, so take the time to come up with original concepts.
33% of millennials use at least one adblocker because they want to engage with content on a personal level.
It’s not that they hate advertisements. In fact, they might like it if the ads are personalized, arouses their interest and are relevant to them.
Millennials need to trust and respect your brand before they purchase from you. Aggressively pushing your products on their faces will be counterproductive and cause millennial customers to disengage from your brand.
Recognizing and avoiding clichés is a necessary first step, but coming up with a truly original marketing campaign is the real game-changer. Millennials appreciate experimental approaches, so dare to be original. The Old Spice Campaign is on a class of its own in terms of originality and its daring to be bold.
Old Spice had an image problem and was getting crushed by companies like Axe, which was seen as more “hip,” and appealed far more to the millennials in the past; the company had advertised its products to the older, 40–60-year-old market.
After assessing market trends, they decided to switch their target consumer to users in the 18–34-year range.
Rather than go head-on with the competition, they wanted to convince women to stop buying their men “lady-scented products.”
It resulted in the “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign, which aired on February 8, 2010.
According to P&G, the campaign returned some astounding numbers:
- Nearly 105 million YouTube views of the campaign
- 2 billion earned media impressions, including features on national broadcast networks and international media outlets
- 2700% increase in Twitter followers
- 800% increase in Facebook fan interaction
- 300% increase in website traffic
Everyone was talking about Old Spice.
3) It’s not all about the ‘’Sale’’
Companies traditionally use advertising to sell their products and services, but Millennials are a different kind of buyers.
Marketers want to make fast sales, so they turn to platforms like Facebook Ads and AdWords and spend thousands of dollars on advertising every year.
These outbound tactics alone aren’t alone going to be enough to get millennial customers. 3 out of 4 millennials are more attracted to experiences than to physical products.
Millennials need a strong and compelling reason as to why they should purchase your product because products options are almost limitless.
So rather than going in for the hard sell, try providing your millennial audience with content they can learn from, find a sense of value in and or entertains them.
The more they interact with this type of content, the more your message will slowly soak in, especially if they get the sense that your business shares their core values.
According to the latest research, millennials are more willing to purchase from businesses which support a cause.
50% of millennials are more willing to purchase from a company if that brand contributes to a good cause. Research also shows that 75% of millennials want companies to share a portion of their profits with society.
Millennials can tell when companies are simply in it for the profit rather than caring about the end consumer or the society at large.
So in short if your brand stands for something more than just a ‘’sale’’ there is a high chance that millennials will love you.
Conclusion
So there you have it! How to effectively market to the Millennials in a Nutshell!
Let us know your thoughts on these and do share with us some other suggestions on what brands could do to improve marketing to the Millennials in the comments section below.
Let’s talk.
and we’ll help figure out what is required to take your business towards your next phase of growth