​Enter the age of millennial marketing. Millennials have overtaken Baby Boomers as America’s largest generation. A recent census showed that there were 75.4 million millennials, defined by those born in 1981-1996, while Baby Boomers totaled 74.9 million. Between their numbers and their buying power, which is estimated at $1.3 billion per year, many companies have started to focus their marketing efforts on millennials.

How to Be Successful at Millennial Marketing

Millennial marketing is not like traditional advertising. This makes sense, as each generation has different needs and desires. Along with this, new technology being developed changes the way marketers reach their audience. Millennials have grown up learning how to use and manage digital means of communication. More and more companies are focusing their efforts on the digital sphere and content marketing because these are effective ways to speak to their audience.

So, to be successful in marketing to millennials, marketers need to understand who they are marketing to and make each marketing effort deliberate and meaningful. Just like with baby boomers, there are a few things that you can focus on to improve your millennial marketing efforts.

7 Ways To Market To Millennials

Of course, there are certain aspects of a marketing campaign that determine whether or not it will speak to millennials and thereby be successful. As mentioned before, content marketing can play a big part in your efforts. A great way to reach people in the millennial age group is by offering useful, informational content without any strings. They want to know why they should buy your products or services.

And the more people can learn about a business or company, the more trust is gained. Content can also be used as traffic grabbers and can help build up a business’s credibility and expertise online.

With a few guidelines, your content can be specific and directed towards millennials. Here are seven ways to use content in your millennial marketing strategy:

1. Target Your Audience

Millennials may consistently be lumped into one large group, but it is important to remember that this generation is actually quite diverse. In addition to the age differences between those born in the early 80s and those born in the 90s, there exists diverse interests, backgrounds, income levels and more. Thus, it is important to find your target audience and create content that really speaks to them.

So, before you can really market to millennials, you need to narrow it down. Here are a few questions you may need to ask yourself and your marketing team:

• What do you want your target market to do? Is it to buy a product, use a service or support a cause?
• What are the demographics of this group? Where and who is willing and capable to do the desired action?
• What are the interests, likes and dislikes of this group? What is important to them?
• Which platforms does this specific group get information from?
• How does your product/desired action help this group solve a problem or dilemma they have?

Many of the factors involved in marketing to millennials work across the board, but it is important to also combine them with personalized, targeted content marketing. Focus on engaging with a niche rather than trying to generally grab as many customers as possible. When engaging in millennial marketing, finding ways to connect on a personal level with your customers strengthens the impact.

The more you know about your target audience, the more competent you are in reaching them and making an impact.

2. Demonstrate Engagement with Your Community

As a whole, millennials tend to care deeply about social issues. This also impacts their decision of what businesses to patron, with 70 percent spending more money at companies that support a social issue that they care about. Furthermore, 9 out of 10 will actually switch brands in order to buy from one that is associated with a cause. To gain the benefits from this, you must demonstrate that your company is authentic in its support. Here are a few examples of companies that support a social cause:

Part of the reason why millennials are so invested in companies that support good causes is the heart behind it. There is a lot of emotion behind many purchases they make, so supporting causes as part of your millennial marketing is a great way to fuel that emotional connection.

How To Support Causes

Supporting a cause means that your company must do more than simply provide donations once a year to a random charity.  Some ways to give back in a more meaningful way that speaks to millennials include:

• Have your staff members volunteer at a local soup kitchen or your chosen charity.
• Organize a clothing, food or toy drive and make it easy for customers to join in.
• Instead of a company BBQ, have a company-wide day of service.
• Go “green” and make all the changes you can to attain a LEED certification.
• Only use recyclable materials and/or organic products.
• Reward your staff members who volunteer outside of the company.

With a little content marketing, you can share how your company supports causes and contributes some good to the world. These are great topics to write about and can help convince readers that your business is reliable, good-hearted and a great place to buy from.

On top of helping people in need and being a way to market to millennials, supporting causes in your community is also a great team-building tool. Giving back is not only good for business but good for your business.

3. Show Love to the Mobile Devices

Over 85 percent of millennials own smartphones, making them the largest group to do so. It is common for them to use these devices to access the internet, shop, check email, access social media accounts, compare products and search for businesses while on the go.

And with the 2020 pandemic, purchases online are becoming more and more common. Not only are they popular, but they are also much more convenient than traditional shopping. Therefore, when employing millennial marketing campaigns, it is vital that your company has mobile-friendly web pages and advertisements.

If a page takes too long to load or otherwise is not compatible on a mobile device, the consumers are five times more likely to quickly bounce and go somewhere else. Develop your digital properties with responsive design to mitigate this problem and keep millennials from bouncing away from your pages.

Along with making your website mobile-friendly, make sure each piece of content you write is SEO-friendly as well. This means you should use headings, bullet points, pictures and metadata (such as a meta title and meta description). This can improve search engine rankings and the overall quality of your blog posts and articles. This increases the readability for website visitors, making it more likely that they will read through your content.

4. Show, Don’t Sell

Millennials were raised on advertisements, so they are very savvy of being sold to, and they are very tired of it. In fact, 84 percent of millennials do not like advertisements and many are much more likely to trust sources that provide information rather than simply selling. Anything that appears “salesy” and not authentic will quickly backfire.

Instead, create millennial marketing material that provides something of value to a particular group. Consider who your customers are and the needs that your products or service fulfills. Then, develop content marketing that demonstrates how your product provides something your customers need. Show how to do something and empower your consumer base to trust you as a helpful authority on the subject. Give them a list of top things to know before buying your product, or top uses for it once it’s been purchased.

If you can convince your readers that you honestly want to help them and offer useful services/products, they will find their way to your products. But there are so many benefits of providing content that is for the benefit of the reader and adds to your overall credibility as an expert in your field.

5. Quick and Fast Solutions

In addition to demonstrating what your products or services offer to millennials, it is also important to provide quick and fast solutions. As a whole, this generation expects to find quick answers to their problems. This is because the millennial brain is used to taking in a large amount of information from different sources and then acting quickly. They reach for the nearest internet access to find answers to their questions.

Provide these answers in your content marketing and demonstrate how your products or services also help, and you will be a long way towards bringing in more customers. But how do you get the attention of millennials quickly and effectively? Here are a few options:

• Utilize proper blog formatting with headings and bullet points to help millennials quickly navigate your content.
• Invest in listicles (i.e. “Top X ways to do this…”) that give millennials an idea of how much content they’ll be encountering before getting lost in an endless sea of marketing content.
• Use action words in headers to help them feel that you have actionable content that is useful.
• Include photos that are engaging and relevant to your content. These can help guide readers while they scan your content, and it can also help catch their attention when scrolling on social media.

Millennial marketing is all about finding the best shortcuts and easy connections that guide your target audience towards a purchase. Part of this is by making your content just as snappy and fast-paced.

6. Be On Social Media

Because social media was born during the younger years of millennials, this generation is more heavily involved with social media and expects to connect with brands there. Therefore, when marketing to be millennials, be active on as many sites as makes sense for your company, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and LinkedIn. Do not simply post on these sites; actively engage with the consumers. Ask for feedback, reply to comments, follow some of your customers back, and actually interact with your followers.

As part of the narrative your millennial consumers crave, social media should highlight your company’s values, efforts and valuable information about the industry you are in. Rather than use posting on these sites for advertisement, use them to tell the story of your brand and continue to create your brand identity.

Being able to relate to brands on a personal level is one of the most effective millennial marketing methods at your disposal. With social media, you can connect with followers and encourage them to comment, like and share posts you publish. This sense of engagement can do a lot for your company and help build a relationship with your millennial audience.

7. Showcase Real Relationships

Use your social media and content marketing to showcase relationships that you have with customers in real life. This helps build trust with millennials since they tend to trust real people rather than companies. Include testimonials and have customers create content from time to time as guest spots.

Millennial marketing should include featuring industry authorities on your blog or social media account. Find a way to have user-submitted content as a feature on your website and/or social media accounts. This extra validation from customers can be a great way to build trust in your audience.

Marketing to Millennials: Be Authentic

The defining theme underlying the ways to successfully engage in millennial marketing is to illustrate authenticity and facilitate engagement. Use your content marketing campaigns to develop relationships with your potential customers and create a brand identity that actually speaks to, and with, them. Do you have any other tips on how to market to millennials? If so, leave them in the comments below!