Marketing to Millennials
Millennials Express Themselves Through BrandsMillennials express themselves through brands and want brands to have much more than a just a logo. They want brands to have a personality that they like and can relate to.
Millennials use brands to show who they are, particularly the younger Millennial. It is important that Millennials either want to be like your brand or already are like your brand. Half of millennials aged 18-24 years feel that brands say something about who they are, their values and where they fit in. Forty percent are even willing to pay extra for a brand or product that reflects the image they wish to convey about themselves.
Millennials Want To Be Your Friend
Friends are hugely important to Millennials, and they have a large circle of friends. Millennials have more friends online and probably offline than any other generation. They also look up to their friends and marketers should develop their brand in such a way that Millennials would like to befriend it.
Millennials most of all want friends who are trustworthy but also genuine, sociable, mature and humble. Brands should bring these qualities across in their brand when marketing to Millennials.
They Want To Experience Your Brand
“Spend money on experiences, not things” – is true for Millennials more so than any other generation. Millennials love experiences, after all they are the ones attending the parties, concerts, festivals, shows and sports games. Nearly 8 in 10 Millennials say some of their best memories are from an event or live experience they attended or participated in.
Based on recent studies, 78% of Millennials are more inclined to become part of a brand if they have face-to-face interaction with it. This signals that brands should engage more in experiential marketing when targeting Millennials.
Millennials Love Word Of Mouth (even from strangers!)
Most customers trust word of mouth but Millennials in particular love online word of mouth more than other generations. Eighty-four percent of Millennials say that user-generated content on company websites has at least some influence on what they buy, compared to seventy percent of Boomers. In fact, there are many purchase decisions – big and small – that Millennials won’t make without user generated content.
When it comes to recommendations from friends and family, Millennials value their opinions much less than boomers. While Millennials still value friends and family considerably, they trust strangers just as much – in fact slightly more. Fifty-one percent of Millennials trust strangers compared to only thirty-four percent of boomers.
Millennials Don’t Like Traditional Marketing
I feel the biggest challenge in Millennial marketing today is that Millennials don’t like traditional marketing. The marketing industry is changing to keep up with Millennials. For example, Millennials did not like Facebook advertisements, so they introduced sponsored posts. Marketers realized Millennials were doing research online before they buy, so inbound became popular, and HubSpot was born.
I don’t want to see a traditional advertisement for a Travel Agent that reads: “Cheap Holidays For Spring Break”. Instead, I want to see a sponsored post for “The Top 10 Destinations For Spring Break”. Millennials love native advertising (which is far from traditional). According to AdWeek, fifty-seven percent of Millennials are willing to check out sponsored online content, as long as it’s interesting.
They Want You To Care
Millennials are loyal to brands who listen to them and care about them. When you look at the top fifty Millennial brands, you will recall most of them doing just this. They care about their customers and listen to what they say.
As the inquisitive and opinionated people millennials are, we question why brands collect our thoughts. The majority of Millennials (71%) say companies care about customer opinions simply because they impact how other consumers will view the brand, rather than genuinely caring about what they think. We want you to care.
Also, both Millennials and baby boomers believe consumers care more than brands. This might suggest why we don’t hold back on sharing our thoughts about brands and products on social media.
Brands should care more about their Millennial customers and take into consideration what they say. Engage in social listening, respond to Millennials positively and do what they tell you.
Millennials Need To Be Marketed To
Millennials must be considered as a target market for the majority of brands today. There are now as many Millennials as there are Baby Boomers and Generation X. While they are all given the one label ‘Millennials’, they vary in age quite a lot. That said they have a lot in common. Millennials are the social generation and founders of social media. They should be marketed where they know best through social channels.
