Marketing is difficult, and it’s something that many businesses can’t handle. It’s why they struggle to meet the needs of one of the biggest audiences in the country. According to the latest statistics, the 18-34 demographic has about $1.3 trillion of annual buying power. Do you really want to leave that sort of money on the table?
The problem you have is that millennials are such a diverse group. For a start, 43% of them are non-white and about 25% speak a language other than English. You can’t easily pin them into one category.
This guide is going to give you three tips for how you can go about marketing to what is perhaps the most diverse group in the country today.
Mobile Marketing is a Must
The first characteristic you will come up against is that most millennials own smartphones in the US, and the majority is going to be using them on a consistent basis. If you have yet to expand into mobile marketing, you have zero chance of hitting this market.
So how can you excel at mobile marketing?
First of all, you need to make sure that your various landing pages and your website is optimized for mobile devices. Make sure everything is simple and your sites don’t take too long to load. Ensure that you have a clear call to action. Actually advertising on these platforms though is difficult.
You need to wrap up your advertising in the form of apps and other forms of entertainment. Millennials are programmed to ignore straight advertising, so forget about it. Brian Wong of Kiip, for example, decided to integrate advertising with online gaming.
Style your advertisements as a reward and you are well on your way to hitting millennials.
Target Social Groups
Life stage advertising is a type of advertising that refers to the different stages of a person’s life. Previously, it was believed that marriage and having a family meant the same things to everyone. But millennials are the most non-traditional generation yet and the same term can mean entirely different things to different social groups.
Furthermore, many social groups and many life stages are simply not relevant to millennials. For example, many of them will own a house. Many of them will not stick with the same company and have long, stable careers. Adult life for them isn’t as linear as it once was.
That’s why you need to prioritize audience segmentation. Drill down into millennials and divide your advertisements based on the different groups. This means you will squeeze the various demographics and go out of your way to reduce your reach with individual ads. In return, you will have a higher number of conversions.
Be Relevant and Engaging to Them
This may be the most obvious piece of advice, but it’s as relevant as ever before, and even more so millennials. This is the last group that will accept your messages and so you have to put in a lot more effort to actually engage with them. Many millennials rely on the online world to solve problems.
And that means you can be their savior by helping them to solve their most common problems. Brands are not about advertising but about solving problems in the real world.
If you have no purpose in problem solving, you are never going to appeal to this group. As you steadily start to build trust, you will create brand evangelists and they are your most powerful marketing tool. Most millennials believe that their friends are the best source of information. If they recommend something, they are going to believe it.
Creating groups of brand evangelists among millennials can gain you hundreds more loyal customers, and those hundreds will soon turn into thousands. The best way to get millennials to spread a message is to have them do it themselves.
Last Word – Change Regularly
Millennials are changing all the time and what works now isn’t necessarily going to work six months from now. More than any other generation you have to be prepared to adapt to change. This is why it’s worth tapping into the social media networks they are using and monitoring them.
You should be testing all the time so you can spot changes before they happen. This will prevent you from experiencing periods of feast and famine as you struggle to catch up. It will allow you to stay ahead of your competitors.
In your opinion, what is the best way to appeal to millennials?
