Marketing to Millennials
You may have come across the term Millennials. Who are Millennials? Did you know that your marketing efforts need to be tailored in order to effectively reach them? Let me break it down for you. Firstly, contrary to popular belief, Millennials are not those who were born in or after the Year 2000, popularly known as the millennium. The year of birth brackets for Millennials vary widely, generally though, anyone born between 1981 and 1999 can be considered a Millennial, whilst those born after 1999 are called Generation Z.
Feeling old? The oldest of the Generation Z’ers could now be twenty-two! That means Millennials ostensibly age between twenty-three and forty one! I’m a Millennial in my early Thirties. So, how do you market effectively to Millennials, and by extension, the early cohort of Gen Z as well? Here are a few tips.
Visual, Visual, Visual
Millennials have an increasingly lower inclination to read a lot of text, especially in marketing materials. They are a visual generation, consuming visual content, be it in the form of pictures, info-graphics, or videos. The human brain is said to process images on an order of 60,000 times faster than text processing according to some sources of research. Take advantage of this and ensure that your marketing content if targeted at Millennials is primarily visual.
Get to the point, fast
Whilst in the old days a television commercial typically lasted thirty seconds, today you’d be hard-pressed to find an internet commercial or video ad lasting anything longer than ten seconds. Millennials have a very short attention span for marketing messages, and if the content does not interest them within the first few seconds, its game over. It’s even worse with Gen Z’ers, where five-second video commercials are thought to be the sweet spot.
Mobile-optimize everything
Millennials and Gen Z’ers consume the vast majority of their content on mobile devices. You’re looking at an average-sized screen of six inches diagonal for smartphones, and ten inches diagonal for tablets. Ensure that your content is optimized for these smaller screens. Key elements in videos should be large enough to be identified even on a smaller screen. If you must use on-screen text, choose a suitably large font size and clear, easy-to-read font.
Social media is compulsory, not optional
If you’re thinking to market your product to Millennials and Gen Z’ers, a robust and frequently updated social media presence is compulsory, not optional. You need to go where your target segment is hanging out, be it Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest or whatever new thing pops up tomorrow.
Encourage them to create content, and highlight it
Millennials love to create content, and they love it even more when the brands or products involved actively acknowledge their content. For example, if you find a customer blogging or posting about your hotel’s awesome pre-dinner cocktails, be certain to engage with them, ask them to tag your hotel’s official social media page, and once they’ve done that, re-share their post on your page. By the way, don’t forget to thank them for their kindness. Marketing in this manner is a two-way street, not a one-way alley: where you push content to them, and they consume it. They will push content back to you, and you should use it in a meaningful manner.
Never fail to address criticism – if you can’t make or break your brand, they can
Just as Millennials are likely to share positive experiences with your brand, they are even more likely to share negative ones, especially when they raise a concern immediately, only to receive an unacceptable response. Whilst your damage control efforts should have been taken then and there, to minimize the chance of things escalating to social media, once they are on social media, you can’t just leave it alone. First, find out what happened and where the mistakes occurred. Reach out to them privately and offer a mutually agreeable solution, and once that has been done, you can respond to their post accordingly. Usually, they will update the post themselves, or take it down if they receive an appropriate solution, unless the problem is beyond solving, in which case, take a long and hard look at yourself and brace for the social media storm.
Ashraaq Wahab - Technical Director Hospitality Sri Lanka, Automotive Journalist, Marketer and Writer, enjoys penning his thoughts, insights and ideas on a variety of topics.
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