According to the Pew Research Center, millennials are the nation’s largest living generation. They’re an age bracket that lack a long attention span, and crave experiences, activism, and constant connection. They’re an age group that doesn’t settle, which means your marketing initiatives have to be a bit more creative in order to attract the right attention.
If you’re a business that wants to attract millennials, but haven’t figured out how, these are some of the best tactics you can use to create a relevant relationship between your brand and Generation Y.
Know what you’re after. If you’re confused about your business goals, your customers are just as confused. The millennial generation wants to associate with brands that are just as confident and deep-rooted in its values as they are. Developing an understanding of your industry and knowing what your product can do for the millennial consumer is half the battle.
Market where the millennials are. Generation Y are consistently connected. If a portion of your marketing dollars aren’t invested in a responsive website and mobile ads, your chances of reaching your target audience are minimal. Responsive websites guarantee that your web page displays optimally on all platforms, ensuring they’re always user-friendly.
Speak their language. During the 50s and 60s, marketers spoke to the consumer’s desire to go against authorities – the need to “stick it to the man.” Today’s millennials aren’t so much about resisting authority, but instead solving the problems the authority presents. Pay attention to the causes your audience cares about, but be careful about getting too political or too opinionated. You want to entice your audience with ways that they can help, not scare them away by presenting harsh criticisms or challenging positions.
Create a friendship. Millennials don’t want to be treated like a consumer; they want to be addressed as an equal. This generation of shoppers tend to be loyal to a product or service if they can adopt everything the brand represents. Create a relatable culture for your consumer and they will come.
Be transparent. Information is all too easy to access, making it vital for companies to be as open and honest as possible. If something goes awry (with the production of a product for example), you can bet it’s going to be covered on a number of media outlets that millennials pay close attention to. This generation may dislike what’s happened, but a brand that is real with their consumer is a brand that stands in a better chance of keeping that individual as a customer.
Offer an experience. Millennials love being a part of something. Brands that create experiences for their audiences succeed with the millennial market. Look at Budweiser’s campaign to find the golden beer can. They’re playing on the nostalgia of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (a movie nearly every millennial has seen) and the advent of winning a prize. Regardless, everyone’s a winner because they’re getting what they want (a case of beer) with the added bonus of possibly winning a prize.
A graduate of Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business, Chloe Rapp is a Digital Marketing Professional specializing in Campaign Planning + Strategy, Content Creation, and Project Management at [2 one 5] Creative Inc. in Philadelphia.
