- Sher Lynn
11 Ways to Target Millennials with Your Marketing
Millennials represent an increasing percentage of the buying power in our economy. They have money and are ready to spend -- so how do you make your product stand out?
To learn how successful companies are doing this, I asked many of my successful retail clients how they personally were shifting their marketing strategies to better target millennials.
Enlist them to your mission
Add the latest social media networks
Create greater content
Offer them value
Make it relevant and easy
Ensure honesty
Focus on convenience
Bring key influencers into your community
Empower personal expression
Go mobile
Incorporate video
Enlist them to your mission
One great way to appeal to millennials is to be transparent when sharing your vision and your mission with your goal of connecting with them emotionally to your brand. Millennials desire to be a part of something bigger than themselves, so answer their W.I.I.F.M (What Is It In For Me) by clearly sharing the why you do, the value to them, what you do and why they should be a part of your cause as a consumer.
Add the latest social media networks
As soon as a new social network or platform becomes popular with millennials, it's important to quickly add it to your marketing strategy, even better keep yourself in the know regarding new trends with millennials by reviewing blogs targeted to millennials etc. This positions you as an early adopter, while enabling you to target the millennial audience before a network or platform starts to get crowded, you want to be seen as forward thinking to attract the savvy millennial consumer.
Create greater content
Millennials are not attracted to traditional advertisements. How many of you remember the Yellow Pages? With so much access to technology, the Yellow Pages became obsolete. Instead of focusing the majority of your marketing budget on ads, focus on providing relevant and valuable content. Be sure the content is informational and actionable. If you provide millennials with information that can alleviate a challenge or problem for them, they are more likely to think positively about your brand
Offer them value
Millennials, just like other generations, are looking for value; they're not always trying to get the best for less (for example, Apple sales have skyrocketed since the early 2000s). They want to know that they're part of an exclusive club and will readily support an underdog. For example: Brandy Melville's success and Abercrombie & Fitch's proportional decline. Millennials are not interested in paying to advertise companies' brands like Abercrombie or Lucky, they want value for their money and sometimes that means finding what they want online or in thrift stores.
Make it relevant and easy
As the Generational Guru, I’m often asked by my customers what to do to capture the hearts (and wallets) of millennials. My response: add a social-impact element as part of the marketing initiatives that includes videos, photo’s etc. Millennials gravitate towards companies that are giving back and want to support their favorite brand’s “giving back” efforts. Also, make sure that “good” action is streamlined and easy to find and access!
Ensure Honesty
Millennials will find the money to buy something of value, but they immediately reject salesy gimmicks. Invest in content and community building to be open about what you do, who you are, the value you create, and where your revenue comes from. Millennials as buyers, business owners, students want to know that most of your revenue goes to making your product better.
Focus on convenience
Having grown up with on-demand entertainment, millennials crave convenience. The success of companies such as Uber, Dropbox, and Airbnb have largely been built around convenience and ease of use, as opposed to breakthrough technologies. Proactively work to improve your user experience, cutting out unnecessary steps wherever you can.
Bring key influencers into your community
It's not enough to just create a conversation around your brand. With millennials, you need to identify the people they consider influential in your niche and specifically get them involved in the conversation. These influencers can tap their own networks and draw in more online participation, which is key for marketing to millennials because they want to be part of the creation process.
Empower personal expression
Millennials are known for valuing uniqueness and individuality. They want to be different from the masses. Embrace the trend of co-creation by giving users the option to customize their product and by giving them a sense of control over their entire buying experience.
Go mobile
If you aren't thinking mobile first to reach millennials, you won't be successful. This generation spends more time on their mobile devices than any other platform and are making their decisions utilizing their mobile devices. It is critical that your website is mobile friendly, if not the user will move on to your competitor.
Incorporate video
Younger generations (Millennials and Gen Z) gravitate more toward online videos than any other medium, and adding video opens up new SEO routes as an added bonus.
Using these 11 tips in developing your marketing strategy, you will gain millennial fans for your product or service in no time.
Sher Lynn, the Generational Guru and best-selling author of Ties to Tattoos, Turning Generational Differences into a Competitive Advantage, is a speaker, coach and trainer in the area of Human Resources and Talent Management. Sher specializes in helping employers maximize their human capital by collaborating across the generational gap. Her expertise in human capital management and organization includes: workforce planning, company culture, training, assessments, HRIS implementation, regulatory compliance, strategic alignment, payroll, compensation and benefit programs. Learn more at generationalguru.com.