If you haven’t allocated a specific budget for targeting Millennials in your marketing strategy, you’re now considered outdated. Millennials, the generation of young adults born between 1980 and 2000, grew up with technology and collectively spend about $600 billion each year. However, this doesn’t mean you can market to them in the same way you’ve marketed to other demographics.

This generation came of age during the Great Recession (2007-2009), which affected them in many ways, from their personal finances and career options to their worldview. Generally, they are not traditional in their goals and outlooks. For example, they prefer startups and remote work over 9-5 office jobs with a retirement party at the end. They are also postponing marriage and having children much later than previous generations; only 30 percent of Millennials were married as of 2013, compared to 77 percent of the same age group in 1960.

This means that to successfully reach Millennials in your marketing efforts, you need to think outside the traditional box. Here’s what today’s marketers need to know to stay ahead of the game:

Social Proof

Positive reviews about products or services are more important than ever in today’s crowded market. Social proof is especially valuable to Millennials, who are avid researchers and put a lot of trust in social reassurance from their peers. In fact, 84 percent say that user reviews influence their decision to make a purchase. To attract this generation to your brand, provide plenty of reviews on your product pages and social platforms. Just make sure they’re positive—negative reviews can just as strongly influence a Millennial to avoid a company.

Make Them an Offer They Can’t Refuse

Due to the economic recession of their early earning years and their preference for meaningful work over high pay, many Millennials don’t have a lot of extra money to spend. According to Principal Financial Group, 66 percent of this age group use a monthly budget, and 12 percent get help from their parents to pay their mobile phone bill.

For these reasons, this generation is big on coupons, sales, and discount-based apps like Groupon. Furthermore, 92 percent of Millennials use coupons regularly, and they have high standards: coupons that offer less than a 30 percent discount are not as appealing.

Go Mobile

For a generation that grew up with mobile devices, it’s no secret that Millennials spend a lot of time on them. What you might not know is that 45 percent of them use mobile-specific coupons on their smartphones. It may also surprise you (or not) that 83 percent of Millennials sleep with their phones. This is definitely a mobile generation!

Because Millennials spend so much time on their mobile devices, it makes sense for your brand to be there too. Ensure that your business’s website has a responsive design, because if a site is too hard to read or navigate, few people will return to it. Also, be sure to advertise in a mobile-optimized ad format, which is different from ads on other media.

Mobile ads are generally seen on a more personal basis (as opposed to TV ads where thousands or millions of people see it at the same time) and need to capture an individual’s attention and emotional state. For example, you could display an ad while a user is playing a game that congratulates or consoles them, while seamlessly weaving your brand’s message into that experience.

Offer Something Unique

This generation is more racially diverse, non-traditional, and educated than any other generation in history. A whopping 61 percent of them are college-educated (compared to just 46 percent of Baby Boomers), and 42 percent are non-white. They are not only marrying later, but with the newly passed Marriage Equality Act, their family units look different from previous generations. What this means to marketers is that you can’t take a one-size-fits-all approach, you can’t use traditional methods, and you can’t blatantly market to them.

To successfully reach these savvy Millennials, you must appeal to their diversity, individuality, and non-traditional lifestyles. Offer customized products, use marketing images of people who reflect this diverse group, engage with them individually rather than as an entire demographic, and appeal to their passion and social conscience.

Support a Cause

For Millennials, social responsibility is the new religion. Seventy percent think of themselves as social activists, so a brand’s involvement (or lack thereof) in a social cause is a huge deciding factor in whether or not to do business with a company. In fact, 75 percent of Millennials think that brands ought to create economic value for society by addressing its needs.

A great example is the popular boy band One Direction teaming up with Office Depot to offer limited-edition school products that include images of the band, with proceeds from this campaign going to an anti-bullying program. Besides Office Depot’s own marketing efforts, they benefit from the band’s personal advertising on their own social media.

Go Where The Millennials Are

As the old adage goes, “If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain.” For modern-day marketers, this means hanging out where the Millennials hang out. Considering that 85 percent of them have bought something after seeing it on social media, it’s essential to know just which social platforms they are using.

According to Social Media Today, Millennials’ top five social hangouts are:

– YouTube (64%)

– Facebook (51%)

– Instagram (45%)

– Snapchat (42%)

– Twitter (28%)

The survey also found that video ads are the most effective for the younger portion of Millennials.

You don’t have to be a marketing genius to understand how important it is to know your audience and learn how to appeal to them. Each generation comes with its own uniqueness, preferences, and priorities. The Millennial generation is tech-savvy, too smart to be pandered to, socially conscious, and not interested in the established norm. If you want to successfully reach Millennials, you have to work hard to capture their attention, be authentic, and give them the information that they are interested in.