Brands are constantly innovating in an effort to effectively target their marketing to millennials. This important demographic represents nearly a quarter of the population in America (80 million people in total). Because millennials have an annual buying power of 200 billion dollars, they are an exciting marketing prospect for many companies.
This compelling data means the companies have to look at their marketing strategies to make Generation Y a priority. They’re doing this by creating authentic tailored content, focusing on making the process of online shopping fun, and finding ways to stand out from the crowd.
Authentic, Tailored Content
Millennials spend an average of 27 hours online every week, and they’re interacting with authentic content that meets their needs. They are empowered by content-driven media in all its various forms including websites, blogs and social media. They also share what they learn – tweeting, sharing, liking, , pinning, forwarding and commenting on what they find. This curated approach then empowers their followers to make similar or related discoveries. And this is important because it comes down to trust. Millennials trust content that they feel is authentic, and they trust content that has been shared by others.
A customized approach to authentic content is a powerful way to reach Generation Y. They want to feel that brands are interested in them and are creating content with their best interests in mind, rather than being focused on the bottom line. This is moving brands towards creating educational content that doesn’t push sales, but rather seeks to inform, thereby building strong brand-consumer relationships. The focus is also on creating content that users will want to share with their followers.
Building Brand Awareness by Making the Process Fun
Gathering information online shouldn’t only be practical, but also enjoyable. For many millennials the process of researching, browsing and choosing a new purchase is more rewarding than the actual purchase. Put differently, online shopping and e-commerce are more than a means to an end; it’s a form of entertainment and an act of personal expression.
Platforms such as Pinterest enjoy huge success as they tap into this desire for a curated experience allowing users to save interests, make wish lists and browse shared collections. In order to successfully market to millennials, companies need to understand that consumers want an online experience that is fun and social.
Standing our from the Crowd
Getting your message across to millennials is getting more and more difficult, in the 1970’s consumers were exposed to around 500 ad messages per day, today its upwards of 5000. Ad blindness and social media saturation have made it so that companies are constantly looking for new ways to market to this important demographic of the population.
One of the options is to move away from the digital space, back into real life, and meet millennials where they’re at. Millennials consume 44 percent of coffee in the United States, making them the perfect target market for bev top media.
Bev top media is a new technology by Drink Ripples that allows for any image or message to be printed on a customer’s cup of coffee. The Ripples coffee printer is revolutionary because a millennial’s cup of coffee is the one place where they stop looking at their screens, even if only for a moment. But that moment is enough for a brand to leverage. Also referred to as the naked drink gap, this is an unexploited opportunity to get your message in front of your target market when they are relaxed and not being distracted by smartphones or laptops.
Marketing to millennials is a delicate balancing act; they are responsive to authenticity from brands, and a fun approach to gathering information online. But there is also the opportunity to appeal to them through new innovations such as a coffee printer which allow for access to this specific target market at a perfect time when they are not distracted by other adverts.