With every new generation comes new desired ways for marketing relevant products. Gone are the days of door to door marketing and in are the days of digital marketing. From social media to email and targeted marketing, there are many ways to reach your audience. However, it’s important to note that often those of the rising generations are resistant to certain kinds of targeted ads and corporate-driven connections. Many millennials and Gen Z-ers prefer experiences and connection with relatable people over loyalty to corporate brands. You will have to be aware of their attention spans, preference for texting, skill with social media, and desire to look up to ethical brands. If you really want to connect with Gen Z and the Millennials, these are definitely the five marketing strategies you must start utilizing.
Use Real Relatable People
Before these new generations arrived, businesses could use paid actors to market their products. However, this isn’t working anymore with the Millennials and Gen Z-ers. Rather, these generations want to see real people that they can relate to telling them about how the product is meeting needs that these generations have. You won’t make sales to these individuals if you just try to explain how good the product is without relating it to their own needs. This means that marketing with influencers and getting your customers to leave reviews and show themselves using your products on social media is going to be a major key to connecting to these newer generations.
Eight Second Marketing
One of the biggest changes that you’ll need to make in your marketing strategy to be successful with these new generations is the advertising time. Their attention span is about eight seconds long. That means if you don’t have them hooked within eight seconds, you’re not going to. This is why Instagram stories, Facebook stories, and Snapchat stories are such a popular way to market to these generations. In addition, video content is one of the most powerful marketing tools. Multiple surveys have shown that Youtube is the preferred platform for Gen Z-ers to turn to for entertainment or information.
Texting Is Essential These Days
You know that pretty much everyone has a smartphone these days. It’s just how we connect with one another. You can utilize this information to your advantage by turning your marketing efforts to text messages. There are SMS services for small business that can allow you to send text messages to your potential consumers. We all know that text messages have a very high open rate and consumers tend to have a quick response time. For instant customer outreach and retention, texting is easy, cheap, and seen as more helpful and less intrusive by consumers.
Use Social Media Appropriately
You know that social media is an effective part of any good marketing strategy in the 21st century. However, you can’t just do the same type of advertising across all the different social media platforms. Each platform showcases a different side of your target market. For example, Facebook is utilized for getting informative content. Instagram is utilized for creating inspirational content that speaks to a person’s aspirational self. Millennials and Gen Z-ers respond best to marketing strategies that are not obviously marketing-directed. This means that you have to sell experiences, not products. In other words, you have to sell what experience your product will bring them.
Showcase Your Ability to Be Looked Up To
These new generations love to buy products and services from companies that are ethical and they can look up to. Think about how you can showcase your company’s community service and ethical nature in your advertising. For example, one company called TOMS had a very unique marketing campaign. They would give one pair of shoes to people in need for every pair of shoes that consumers bought. That’s a message that makes it hard for a consumer to not want to buy a pair.
Successful marketing strategies change with time. What worked five years ago may not work as well today. By understanding what Gen Z-ers and the Millennials are looking for in relevant marketing, you can ensure that your company remains successful going into the future.
