Online Marketing and Millennials: What You Need to Know

Selling products or services to any generation is a challenge, but millennials have a lot of advertisers scratching their heads and struggling to come up with solid marketing campaigns.  This is because of a number of factors, like:

• Millennials are multi-taskers.  The 18 to 34 years of age crowd enjoy using multiple devices simultaneously and are often engaged in several activities at once.  This opens an opportunity to advertise on multiple channels, but research has shown that it has also reduced their ability to remember what they have seen and read.
• Millennials want a customized experience.  Knowing where a millennial lives, eats and spends his or her time isn’t good enough.  This generation expects customized content tailored to their needs and instant responses to their concerns.
• Millennials prefer “share-worthy” brands.  The more this generation can brag about your offerings, a promotion or a brand-hosted event, the better.

Successful Online Marketing to Millennials

Millennials may have high expectations, but they aren’t an impossible group to market to.  In fact, there are a number of advantages to marketing to millennials like the fact that they don’t mind advertisements as much as generations previous and they are more willing to be more open about what they think about your products and your brand.

Here are 3 ways you can start reaching out to the millennial market:

1. Be Authentic

Millennials have a good nose for sniffing out BS.  If they discover that your brand has not been true to its values or mission statement in any way, they will be sure to find out – and they will be more vocal about it than generations past.

Be true to your brand in every single interaction you have, whether that is with customers, with shareholders, in the media, or elsewhere.  More importantly, if you do slip up somewhere, own your mistake and offer a concrete plan for how you are going to positively move forward.

2. Create Social Proof

Social proof is the new word-of-mouth marketing.  Boost your brand’s social proof by engaging with customers online, asking for testimonials and reviews online, and by partaking in share-worthy events and activities which have goals that align with those of your brand and your customers.

3. Make Your Brand About Them

The more input and “in control” you make your customers feel, the more likely they are to become invested in and loyal to your brand.  

• Empathize with their struggles.  Show your human side while also sharing with your customers that you understand their challenges.
• Create customized content through social media posts, blogs, and video (did you know that 80 percent of millennials use video content as part of the product research process?)
• Design polls and questionnaires asking for their opinion (like naming a product, what they think about a potential service, how they feel about product color combinations, etc.)

Looking for new ways to step up your online marketing efforts?  Chat with a digital media marketing specialist at Small Screen Producer today by calling (281) 569-4370.