Are you looking to attract millennials to your small business? In this marketing to millennials guide, read on to learn how to market to this demographic.
Looking to give your small business a boost by marketing to millennials? You’d be wise to do so. In 2019, millennials will become the largest generation.
No longer will baby boomers be the top contender. In order to stay relevant and keep your business afloat, you’ll need to shift your marketing efforts to the up-and-coming generation.
Don’t know if marketing to millennials is something achievable for your business? Think again! To help you out, we’ll be going over some proven strategies to ensure you’re getting a piece of the millennial pie.
Ready to see what they are? Let’s get into it!
Don’t Sell to Them
We’re sure this category has you raising your eyebrow. Before you scoff at this idea, hear us out.
Baby boomers and the older generation are used to slick salesman tactics. That saying of selling ice to Eskimos doesn’t sit well with the younger generation.
Rather than be sold to, they want a more direct, less slimy approach. How do you achieve this?
By giving clear and descriptive explanations of what your products and services will do for them. They want to know how your product and/or service will add value to their life.
Forget the days of selling products that no one needs. If yours doesn’t add some kind of value, it’s back to the drawing board. You can forget trying to get millennials to buy your stuff.
Don’t Make Your Brand all About You
Sure, you created your small business because maybe you were tired of working the regular 9 to 5 desk job. Rather than spend another grueling minute in a cubicle, you decided to take your love of creating and turn it into a business.
That’s good for you, but millennials won’t care to hear too much of that.
Rather than hear what you say, they want to be shown what you do. Meaning, they don’t want to hear you talk a big game of how your business is great. Instead, they want to be shown how your business is helping the environment or the world as a whole.
Brands that they can share the same values with is key to winning millennials as customers. Integrity also plays a huge part so it’s important to stay true to your brand promises.
And, as this should be a no-brainer, millennials care about the way businesses treat them. With that in mind, remember to keep your customer service top-notch and friendly.
Make It Personal
What may seem to contradict our last category is actually the opposite. We spoke about how to not sound egotistical about your brand. Now, it’s about making it known that there is an actual person behind all the creativity.
Millennials aren’t impressed by faceless corporations. They’d much rather do business with one that’s transparent–and that starts with explaining more about who you are.
Again, the key is to not sound big-headed.
One way to successfully make your brand more personal is through packaging. You can leave a note explaining your life story attached to your product or within the packaging itself (like the box or bag you use to contain items). Read more here about appealing to millennials through packaging.
If you do decide to do this tactic, keep the explanation brief. No one wants to read through a novella of your life.
Give Customers a Good Experience
As with any generation, no one likes to be treated badly by a business. But with millennials, they’re more in tune with the digital world than any other generation.
That said, if they receive poor customer service, guess where they’re going? Obviously, they’re going to your competition. But more importantly, they’re going online to post a negative review.
One bad review is enough to tank a large portion of your company. Millennials trust online recommendations as much as they do a friend’s.
Good luck trying to market to more millennials when one is talking bad about your company. To prevent this from happening, make doing business with you a good experience.
How can you do that?
Repeat after us: make customer service your priority. Train employees to diffuse tense situations and calm angry customers down. As always, they should have a smile on their face and try to help the customer in any way they can.
Get Social
Since millennials were born into the oncoming digital age, they’re fairly tech-savvy. That said, you can find a majority of them online.
Social media, forum sites, and blog comments are where you’ll find them. However, social media should be your focus.
It’s a way to connect with them on a broader level than just your website. And speaking of your website, you need to make sure it is optimized for mobile. Once you create social media accounts and list your site, if they can’t reach it via smartphone, don’t expect them to stick around much longer.
Make sure your social media profiles are constantly tended to. It’s important you make status updates, post pictures, and respond to comments. This lets millennials know you’re involved and will make them want to connect with your business.
Visuals Are Important
Since we gave you the rundown on social media, let’s talk about visual content. Millennials are used to seeing high-quality images and videos daily.
It’s important you take part in these types of content as well. While they don’t need to look perfectly polished, it’s essential they’re thoughtful and well put together, whether that’d be a video or image.
Once you’ve crafted your message visually, post it for all to see. Obviously, social media should be your go-to whenever you create something new.
Marketing to Millennials Answered
Marketing to millennials isn’t as hard as you may think. All they want from a business is to be valued, heard, and they want to feel connected to the brands.
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