Marketing to Millennials

Investopedia defines marketing as “the activities of the company associated with buying and selling of a product or service” and then there are thousand other ways of defining the term. So even I decided to develop my own definition of marketing, I define it as “a science of transforming ideas into a product or a service and art of pricing, distributing and promoting product”.

Each generation of consumer has their Generational characteristics and these characteristics have substantial effect on market. Millennials is the termed coined to refer to the generation which will form half of the consumer base of the world over next ten years. Generally generation of people born between early 1980 to early 2000 are referred as ‘Millennials’, also known as ‘Gen Y’. According to research conducted by Boston Consulting Group, Millennials engage with brands far more extensively than the any previous generation. Technology and social media allows this generation to interact with brands and each other in entirely different way than that of ‘Boomer’ and ‘Gen-Xers’.

Millennials are expected to have direct annual spending capacity of around $1.3 trillion, which suggest brands must focus on them. They are highly engaged in digital world and social media, hence can influence purchasing decisions of others. This makes it must for marketers to develop millennial-focused marketing strategy. Like other generations, Millennials too have unique generational characteristics which can be utilized to target them more effectively.

Me being millennial myself, here is my advice for effective marketing to Millennials:

Effective use of social media

Millennials are considered as social media addict and digital generation. They have embraced the concept of liking and sharing. Hence social media platform is considered as safe bet to market your product in today’s scenario. But more insightful research on Millennials social media behavior suggests that they tend to ignore ads that they encounter while using social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. According to one of the research conducted by SocialChorus, an American media agency, only 6% people trust the online ads that they encounter on social media platform. Then the questions arises how to utilize this platform for marketers advantage. Unfortunately many of the brands around the world are still struggling to utilize this platform for effective and efficient marketing.

While using social media platform for marketing one must keep in mind that this generation desires privacy and they do like to share their experiences. Marketer must not do anything which will interfere with consumer’s privacy at the same time must utilize their habit of sharing by giving them the best possible experience with your products and services so that they would share their stories about the product with the world. A post about your company’s product or service can inspire user’s friends to give a try to your product or services. This is really important aspect of marketing these days as there is no better marketing than word of mouth.

Engage your customers

Having their own Facebook pages, Twitter accounts is must for brands these days. Also it is necessary that companies have market specific social media platform pages to target specific market at specific time. These accounts plays important role in engaging consumers. Successful brands don’t just focus on bottom lines but they intend to build relationship with their consumers and social media platform helps them build relationship effortlessly.

Millennials wants to have their say right from product development stage, till how it is delivered to them and how they want to get serviced. This is the unique trait which is been seen in the Millennials around the world. If you engage them in the product development stage this will generate affection towards your product and help you get that extra attention and free publicity. The successful brands are those who listen to their consumers hence listening to your consumer right from the development stage will surely give companies an edge over the competitors.   

Reviews, feed-backs and prompt action on issues

Millennials trust personal recommendation more over any exciting advertisement or great marketing campaign. They tend to believe more in review written on social media sites or e-commerce sites where purchase is made. This provides great opportunity for companies to utilize this trait of millennial by encouraging customers to share product purchase and product reviews on social media. Make sure you address their queries promptly or they will use same platform to scrutinize you and it may damage brand image.

In today’s scenario brands must seek inputs from the customers and as it makes them feel valued. Companies must provide platform to customers to share their product purchase and reviews, integrate such platforms with social media to make the process of receiving feed-backs and reviews user friendly and effortless. The brand which manages to engage with customers frequently, can transform them into effective brand ambassadors.

Be a brand Millennials love to associate with

Research has shown that Millennials are typically socially conscious generation and they are philanthropic in nature. Basically they love and appreciate the idea of giving back to society and seek to associate with people or brands that shares the same views or values. They care for environment and social issues and look for opportunities to involve in such activities. So if brands is involved in social activities and projecting similar image, then there is a good chance that Millennials will love to engage with your brand and support it. This activity is going to affect the bottom line of the company in long term.

Be Transparent

Trust is the key for any successful relationship, same principle applies to business and customer relationship. Millennials are not just expecting you to deliver them what they want but they expect transparency in the entire product life-cycle. Company trying to be secretive about their activities would find it difficult to gain trust of Millennials. Companies must engage them on social media and share companies news, company values with the customers. This create good brand image and sense of trust among the customers towards the organization. So to gain their confidence companies must engage with them on directly.

Viral marketing content

Create viral and intriguing content that consumer can relate to and utilize that social sharing urge of Millennials to spread it. This is the most cost effective way of marketing. This generates curiosity about your brand among masses.

Be creative

Millennials are being judged on their creativity so they will judge the others on the same line. Companies need to be more creative to be relevant in the market. Creativity is something which each generation is expecting from the brands, but Millennials needs creativity on regular basis, even if innovations are frugal that’s fine but has to be there or within short span of time, your brand may become irrelevant. It is basically “be innovative or be ignored”.

Hence to thrive and grow as the next generation of consumers comes of age, marketers must harness social media, create and project a positive brand image and catch their attention. Marketers must make efforts to turn next generation of consumers into their brand ambassadors.