If your target audience is aged between 24 and 39, you’re marketing your brand to millennials. Millennials tend to think somewhat differently to the previous generations because they were born into a period of technological advancements. They are old enough to remember life before iPhones, iPads, and even the internet – but young enough to be proficient at using them and picking up new technologies.
Millennial lifestyles are characterized by flexibility, adaptability, practicality, innovation, a highly intellectual mindset, and entertainment. In the buying decision-making process, they are economically driven and meticulous. Hard selling is unlikely to influence them as their preferences are largely influenced by critical thinking.
So, what are the best strategies for marketing to millennials?
Authenticity:
Being authentic will have a major influence on millennial buying decisions. Before you can turn people into customers, you need to work on nurturing confidence and trust in your brand. This means patiently incorporating data-driven marketing approaches, and providing high-quality content in the form of images, videos, and blog posts.
Millennials will often access social media from their smartphones, so utilize different social media platforms. Millennials will feel that you are authentic when your posts are gaining engagement from their peers, family and friends.
Educate:
Millennials tend to be most attracted to content that’s aligned with their interests, but doesn’t hurt their wallet. Content with a ‘buy now’ emphasis is not going to appeal to them. So, any content that you generate should be specifically focused towards addressing the user’s needs and further educating them. Gen Guru can help you come up with a marketing approach that does not appear pushy, but rather carries a helpful, educational note that will capture the interest of millennials.
Prioritize Use Over Ownership:
Millennials tend to have a mindset that’s oriented by the principle of sharing economy. And they are unlikely to jump at the option to buy immediately. They need to try something out before they feel compelled to own it.
Free trial marketing tends to work well for millennials as it offers them a chance to test the waters and evaluate the authenticity of your brand and offers before deciding to part with their money. As a marketer, this can be a huge challenge as the moment millennials discover anything misleading, they will no longer be interested in whatever you offer to them.
Time Urgency:
Since millennials have grown up with a rapidly growing universe of information at their fingertips, they tend to prefer instant gratification when they want something. For marketers, this means that you need to highly value customers’ time and prioritize quick response rates. According to studies, the average response rate is ten minutes – and millennials want your brand to respond as quickly as possible, otherwise they’re just going to look elsewhere.
And, if you offer a standard response time for email inquiries or anything else, be sure to fulfill it within the given time frame.
Millennials are a generational group that values authenticity, education, customer service, and the ability to try products before they buy. Keep this in mind if your target audience is millennials.