How to market to Millennial?

“MILLENIALS”……the puzzle every marketer tries to solve yet so few succeed. What makes these “YOUNGSTERS” so difficult to understand? Are they different than the rest of the generations? Well, the answer to that is “No, they are not different” They, are just like any other group of consumers.

Millennials have grown up in a connected world. The oldest participants in the birth of the social Internet, learning to type while chatting with friends on AOL Instant Messenger. As college students, they threw themselves into Facebook. Today, Millennials are more connected than ever before with a slew of social media options from Instagram to Twitter, to Snapchat.

But Millennials don’t just want to be connected online. Instead, they want to be connected with the people and brands that are most important to their lives.

How to market to Millennials?

The behavior of millennials to marketing is not much different when compared to previous generations. It’s only the avenues of shopping & content consumption that have changed. In the 1980s, a 22-year-old was going to the shopping malls to shop for the latest ads and was consuming information through MTV. I bet marketers at that time were equally perplexed while marketing to them as they are now while marketing to the millennials.

So, nothing much has changed, it’s just that instead of malls they are shopping online now and instead of MTV they are streaming videos on YouTube. This is because of the rise of online shopping, social media, and an overall sense of immediacy. Today, we live in a digital age where everything is available immediately. We don’t need to leave the house to go shopping, to watch a movie, to get food, or talk to friends and loved ones. Jumping on to this bandwagon is crucial to marketing success.

Here are some tips and tricks which can help you to market to millennials:

Be Transparent: 

Millennials are seeking out more information about what your company is working on, and because the information they’re seeking isn’t what is legally required to be shared on a product label, it’s often the transparency initiatives that provide this level of detail to this generation. They used to look for authentic brands and discuss both the pros and the cons to get a clear picture of what a brand and their products represent so that they can make choices based on what works for them and their lifestyle. Start creating short videos and sharing high-quality photos of products on social media so that they can easily relate to and connect with your company.

Target Audience:

Get in contact with your existing target audiences. They are warm for your product and services. They already know about your products and services and are your best shot at getting in more sales. Use social media or any other platform to grab the attention of the target audiences while doing a marketing campaign.

Be Authentic: 

Today, it has become one of the most powerful tools of marketing in consumer behavior. If you reach out in a very real and personalized manner, your interaction and engagement will lead to a better understanding of your brand. So be authentic with your communication, advertisements, and content as much as possible.

Conversation through Social media: 

Millennials are the most marketing- savvy and advertising critical generation. For millennials, social media has become necessary. They consider social media as the most important platform because these channels are up to date and also the most targeted. Millennials are more likely to see social media as a path for entertainment than a place to share personal updates. They consult, react, or post about products and services on social media.

Adaptable Campaigns:

This is a marketing approach taken by marketers for strategizing market efforts by actively tracking and responding to customers by using the newest tech and services.

There are some business strategies to follow to stay competitive in today’s digital era. Some of the following strategies are as follows:

• Buying online and picking offline
• Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, YouTube, LinkedIn and so on)
• Discounts and Refunds
• Obsession with the word ‘free’
• Product videos
• Mobile Applications

Millennials are a fickle-minded and easily influenceable a large number of people, which makes it hard for them to stick and be loyal to the same retailer. But with a few tactics, one can easily convert the Generation-Y and attract them into buying stuff online.

Let’s take a look at the brands who market to the millennials to capture their attention:

1. Nike:

Millennials are all about memorable experiences. They are on a search for something big. From travel experiences to sporting ones, big brands are beginning to capture this need with an all-round customer journey. Known for its motivational messaging, Nike is a brand that sells the experience of exercise as much as the product itself. It helps in promoting experiences.

2. Carlsberg:

Being Relatable: Consequently, any good marketing campaign has to go deeper than what’s ‘cool’. That’s what Carlsberg did to perfection. Social groups and life stages all play a vital part in how the audience will respond and engage. A brand that knows its audience well but is still willing to move away from a certain stereotype is what Carlsberg is all about.

With a hint of humor at the core of all its advertising, it has found recent success with marketing to the millennials. Jumping on the furor caused by the ‘Are You Beach Body Ready’ campaign, it’s cleverly placed ads asking commuters if they were ‘Beer Body Ready’. The combination of timely relevance and relatable humor made it one of the most inspired campaigns of the past few years.

As a millennial, I have to admit that all these brands are catching my attention and I would like to be engaged with them. So yes, they did a great job!

I agree that millennials value brands while choosing their products. They rely more on social media, to have product information and also mostly buy things online. I also think that they are quite impulsive buyers too; effective point- of -purchase marketing techniques, could easily lure them to switch their brand loyalties when they do visit stores. This is a way in which unknown brands could directly market to the millennials and make a connection.

Stay competent by marketing to millennials and keep struggling to get big in the market!

Idea Usher is one of the best web and app development company based in India. With years of collective experience, we have designed and developed apps for almost all kinds of businesses. Contact us with your idea and requirements and we will guide you through it.