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With the introduction of digital ecosystems, marketing has advanced far beyond sales calls and ads and in the paper. While there is certainly still room for these activities in your strategy, the most effective use of your time and resources will depend on the audience you’re trying to reach. In this article, we’ll be exploring strategies that will appeal to millennial consumers.
Samples and Bonuses
Consumers have advertising thrown at them from all directions, and with the amount of time millennials spend surfing the web, they’ve effectively learned how to ignore marketing content. Because of this, if you’re not offering some kind of extra value, it can be hard to convert a cold lead.
Luckily, there is a simple way to provide this extra value while also boosting your marketing presence. Branded promotional products make great freebies as you can tailor them to match your general offerings. They also create free marketing for your company whenever they’re used by the recipient, so everyone wins.
Support Society and the Planet
The next thing you’re going to want to do is to showcase how your business is helping others. Millennials are far more likely to purchase from companies that are kind to the environment and helpful to the local community.
You can start by running a promotion where a percentage of profits will go to one of your favorite charities. If you’re happy to make a long-term commitment, social procurement is great for both your business and society as a whole.
Be Educational
Another way to appeal to millennial consumers is to be educational rather than basing your content around a sales focus. This is often referred to as content marketing and can provide great results when properly utilized.
Writing informative blogs is the best way to get started with this on your website. Not only will this help consumers trust your brand, but it is also great for SEO purposes and can help increase your organic traffic. This provides the best ROI over the long term. You can then promote these blogs across your social media accounts while also providing shorter info blasts natively on each social platform.
Multimedia Content Is Key
Speaking of providing information natively on social media, the best way to do this is through multimedia content. When flicking through a social feed, people are far more likely to stop and pay attention to an interesting animated graphic or video than they are to a large block of text. It’s also a far better way to keep them engaged with your content. Attention spans online are growing shorter in terms of text, but if a video grabs the audience’s attention, you’ve got a much better chance of them sticking around until the end.
Be Present
Once you have put the above strategies in place, it is important to be present for your audience to back up the information you’ve shared and form deeper bonds. Your audience will have questions, and by being available to answer them, you’ll humanize your brand and help build trust and loyalty.
Sell a Lifestyle – Not a Product
Finally, when it comes time to make your sales pitch, remember that your customers, in most cases, don’t actually care about the product. What they do care about is how it can make them feel or what it can do for them. That’s why it’s important to sell a lifestyle. Focus on the benefits rather than trying to push the product itself, and you’ll see far greater returns.
So, there you have it – our top six tips for appealing to millennial consumers. Happy marketing!