As with every generation, a marketing message that speaks to the audience at a more personal level and acknowledges what they enjoy and who they are will be more effective at attracting a loyal customer base. Still unsure why you should tailor your business strategy to market to millennials? Here’s exactly why: Millennials have now outpaced baby-boomers as the largest living adult population. In the United States alone, there are 73-million millennials.
5 Ways to Reach Millennials in Your Marketing Efforts
Millennials have entered adulthood and have developed a significant level of buying power. However, as with any generation, each person is unique with different values, ideals, and preferences. Marketing to millennials with a message that speaks personally to every individual will be a challenge.
However, millennials are unique in that they are tech-savvy and comfortable with online shopping, but also remember a time without smartphones, laptops, and tablets. Here are five ways you can reach millennials with your marketing efforts:
1. Create Videos
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Video is huge online. Facebook’s users watch more than 100 million hours of video daily. On Snapchat, videos are responsible for 10-billion views. YouTube is also the second biggest search engine next to Google. People prefer to get their information from videos because of their convenience. Plus, messages in videos are more memorable than ones that are delivered via text.
2. Create a Mobile Responsive Site
More mobile purchases are being conducted online than ever before. If your site isn’t optimized for mobile, Google can tell and will penalize your website in the search results. Smartphones are so essential to the online economy that Google now promotes a mobile-first design philosophy as the most critical consideration for delivering great user experiences.
3. Offer Loyalty Programs
You can effectively market to millennials by offering loyalty programs. Almost 70 percent of millennials belong to a loyalty program, with nearly all of them stating they are satisfied with the benefits they receive as members. Consider the type of products millennials buy and develop appropriate strategies that reward them for their continued patronage.
4. Offer Up Excellent Deals
Millennials are always on the lookout for value-adding deals, including discounts for bulk buying, or lower prices for items going out of season. On average, millennials make about $35,000 but are burdened with a student debt of around $40,000. As a result, most millennials are very budget conscious and have put marriage and family plans on the back burner. They are not necessarily looking for time-limited discounts. Instead, they are showing their loyalty to brands that can consistently offer them great deals.
5. Sell the Experience, Not the Product
Even though millennials are budget conscious, they are still about experiencing life now, rather than putting things off until tomorrow. A marketing message that taps into this love of life experiences will resonate with a millennial audience.
You can highlight experiences by showing customers having fun with your products or services. Other effective millennial marketing strategies you can use include competitions where customers post pictures of themselves holding or using your product. Starbucks has used this strategy with its “design your own cup” competitions. TOMS shoes also have their One Day Without Shoes campaign, where customers post photos of their bare feet using the hashtag #withoutshoes.
Regardless of the generation you are attempting to reach, the more personal the message, the more appealing it will be. Get to know your customers, what they enjoy, and the values they hold and use what you learn to tailor your marketing message. It will go a long way towards helping you attract a loyal following. Click here to learn how to attract both millennials and Gen Z in your digital marketing strategy.
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