November 22, 2017

6 Things To Know About Marketing To Millennials

In order to market to millennials, you first must understand them.

However, something important to keep in mind is that your business should not create a marketing strategy for strictly the target audience, “millennials.” Millenials compose of a vast number of individuals, all who are different ages, backgrounds, and have different personalities. Assuming they’re all similar is one of the worst mistakes business owners and marketers can make.

Millennials are a very diverse group, consisting of nearly 25% of the U.S. population and have different morals and values compared to other generations. As a business owner or marketer, it’s important for you to know general information about this generation because millennials have an enormous purchasing power. Here are 6 things you need to know about marketing to millennials.

1.) Authenticity sells

Millennials can generally smell inauthenticity a mile away. They are individuals who want more than just consumption of a project; they want an experience.

A study, conducted by Elite Daily, interviewed 1,300 millennials and found that 43% of them rank authenticity over content when consuming news.

This means millennials prefer to trust a company or a news site first before they even consume the content. In other words, don’t be phony. If anything about your brand screams “inauthenticity”, evaluate it immediately before publishing. With trust comes loyalty, and if you don’t gain millennials’ trust, you’re in trouble. This is where our next point comes in.

2.) Pitch your purpose

As a marketer or business owner, you need to pitch your purpose to your client, not your sales pitch. Explain/show/represent/embody why your business is doing what it’s doing. Pitching your purpose could mean highlighting your company’s values in a creative, interactive way.

Again, millennials can smell inauthenticity a mile away. By pitching your purpose, you are able to come across more genuine and appear less “sales-y.”

3.) Work smart to win their loyalty

Brands have to work hard on gaining millennials loyalty, especially compared to baby bombers. This is a challenge because millennials highly value authenticity and transparency. Elite Daily, again, discovered in their study that only 1 percent of millennials say they are influenced in any way by advertising.

Advertising generally struggles to sell, but authenticity and loyalty doesn’t.

In order to win millennials loyalty, your business needs a strategy. However, most businesses don’t have one. According to Forbes, 90% of marketers agree that it is important to have a brand content strategy, yet only 38 percent of brands actually have one in place. This means if you don’t already have a strategy, you better jump on the bandwagon

4.) Stay away from traditional advertising & traditional thinking

Many brands continue to push “traditional life” messages in millennials faces; examples are getting married, buying a home, and starting a family. Brands have done this because that’s what drove older generations’ purchasing habits. However, according to a recent CEB Iconoculture report, “Inside the Millennial Mind,” these brands are completely missing the point.

Millennials are buying, they’re just buying differently than other generations and aren’t going to change anytime soon.

All in all, business owners should keep in mind their marketing strategies should be geared to where millennials values lie, instead of where they assume they are.

A graphic of individuals holding tablets and cell phones with the text caption, "By 2020, nearly half of all U.S. workers will be millennials."

5.) Use FOMO to your advantage

According to a study by Eventbrite, 69% of millennials experience FOMO when they can’t attend something their friends or family are going to. FOMO is short for the saying “fear of missing out” and you may have felt this one time or another. From travel to music festivals to exclusive eating events, millennials generally don’t want to miss out on any unique sharable experiences. With the rise of social media and changing values, shareable experiences and/or products are the key to reaching millennials.

Use this to your advantage.

6.) Utilize Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing can be seen as word of mouth redefined in the digital age.

It’s all about finding the influencer who has the right kind of engagement (one that generates interest in your product) with the right kind of people (your core target audience). Utilizing influencer marketing can be a smart move because 60% of millennials say they would try a product suggested by a YouTuber and 1/3 consider blogs to be a top media source when researching a purchase. The key to influencer marketing is finding an influencer with an audience that is similar to your target audience. If you’re going to go this route, be sure to do lots of research and refine your pitch before reaching out to him/her.

Other helpful resources

Ready To Grow?

Let's Talk!