Introduction
One of the most important marketing survival strategy is learning how to sell to Millennials. Developing a Millennial-focused marketing strategy is a must. They are, after all the largest generation by number and they already have the largest purchasing advantage. They infiltrate almost every business field from fashion, gadgets and electronics, transportation, education, recreation, and even home products and services. Presenting an idea on the stakes involved, Accenture conducted a proprietary global market research on consumer behaviours. The study reveals that in the United States alone, there are 80 million millennials actively spending approximately $600 billion on purchases every year. Need further evidences on why they are your best market?
Who are the Millennials and what makes them a good market?
Millennials make up the largest demographic. Born between the years 1980s – 2000, they comprise the last generation that that has witnessed the pre-digital era and the first generation to fully experience the internet age. Aside from being the ones with the most vigor they gain a strong influence on both generations before and after. This makes appealing to this group of consumers also results to market expansion to the rest of other age demographics. Being the largest growing part of future consumers, they pioneer on the changes and innovations of the fast-paced millennials change which gives them the power to redefine, and reshape the shopping market of the future. However, having witnessed such drastic media transitions that influenced their unique generational characteristics, marketing to millennials require shifting tactics and strategies.
An insight to the mind of a millennial
Liberal views
The Economist survey of generation characteristics reveals the attitude among millennials to be increasingly liberal with regard to social and cultural issues. They are more likely to favor change. More likely to support current-day issues such as anti-bullying and cultural and gender equality. Hence, a good way to win the hearts of millennials is to show acceptance on liberal advocacies. Gone are the days of promoting random household items solely for house-wives or advertising your online engineering courses with photos of only male students on your webpage. Being adept to the transition of social standards, millennials tend to repel advertisements that subtly promotes a gender, culture, or religious views as above others.
Desire for acknowledgement
As individuals with flaming passion for their own opinions and principles, more than baby-boomers and generation X, millennials have the highest regard of being heard and acknowledged as vital members of the society, As welcomers of changes, they highly reciprocate in a positive light when they feel that they are taken into consideration. They patronize businesses that have their best interest in mind more than those that have long-standing history of good market performance. In simplicity, they value good customer service than statistics. If you are a budding online company, take this to your advantage by building good relations to your millennial visitors. Constantly update your social media pages according to their concerns and, if possible, post your acknowledgement of their patronizing your product and services on your public social media pages. This increases their chance of coming back to you for their next transaction.
They are dependent
Millennials, though individualistic, generally have a strong herd instinct. They travel in packs and rely heavily on personal recommendations from friends. This makes social media a key part in marketing strategy to infiltrating the millennial wide demographic. Work on social media advertisement more than any form of business promotions. From now on, Facebook, Twitter, G+ and other famous social media accounts in your location are your new fishing area in the marketing ocean.
Effective Marketing Strategy for Your Millennials
1. Make them a part of your mission
Carefully stating your vision, mission, and goals is a great way to catalyze emotional response to your brand and services. Understand the millennials attraction in being part of something big and important especially for a greater cause. Therefore, your marketing strategy must show the importance of what you do in relation to your advocacy. Ultimately, provide clear reasons why they should be a part of the cause as a consumer.
2. Come up with a great content
Traditional advertisements are not likely to attract millennials. Rather than investing on sophisticated ads, focus on writing valuable contents on your website. An effective way to help millennials think positively about your brand is by providing them with helpful information. Catch their interest with informal yet informative and actionable content.
Mike Rowe, best known for his role as host of Dirty Jobs, uses his WordPress website to engage visitors with static content and a forum community. Notice the catchy content on his homepage that also works as a call to action.
3. As a beginner, play hard on social media
Studying Brandy Melville’s success in connection to Abercrombie & Fitch’s proportional decline shows that millennials are up to supporting an underdog company much more so if it gives them the feeling of being part of an exclusive club. Learning from Brandy Melville’s marketing strategy, do not underestimate the advertising power of Instagram photos. This could get you as far as playing the black horse in the online market.
4. Innovate for convenience
The success of Uber, Airbnb, Alibaba and Dropbox have all revolved around the idea of innovating services by incorporating technology for convenience and ease of use. Improve your visitors’ navigating experience by cutting off unnecessary steps and friction in your website.
5. Communicate
Your tool: You can add a Facebook live chat window on your store and chat with them as Facebook friends. This is a great way to not only engage them on your social media page for more sales, but also make your customer service more personal because you can access their Facebook profile and know their personal preferences better. Quick Facebook Chat app is the most simple and effective tool that you can use to add a Facebook live chat window on your store.
6. Offer flexible payment options
Another must do is to try to adapt to the purchasing capabilities of the millennials. For example, you can adapt your payment schemes to ones that are normally used by millennials i.e, depending on the country, some people prefer to buy using their credit or debit cards, while in some countries, not all people have credit cards so some people go for the Cash on Delivery mode of payment. If you want to reach more potential customers, you have to adapt your payment scheme to their preferred one.
Conclusion
The millennial consumers grew up to many different kinds of marketing schemes: TV commercials, billboard ads, stop ads, radio ads and the most popular today, online marketing. This explains the skepticism evident among this demographic. However, with a dash of creativity and marketing flexibility, you could end up with a rewarding business experience with your most valued customers – the millennials.
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