Marketing to Millennials: Meeting the Needs of Tomorrow’s Customers
The generation born between the 1980s and 1990s already has a significant impact on companies’ business decisions, and their influence will only grow in the near future. Businesses must adapt to the values and buying habits of this new audience, whose priorities are different from those of previous generations.
In mid-2020, B2B published that millennials—the generation born between the 1980s and 1990s—are already shaping the business decisions of companies worldwide through their purchasing choices, consumption habits, and behavior patterns. Specifically, B2B noted that 73% of working millennials have taken on decision-making roles in the business world, meaning they are already influencing companies’ activities and decisions. Additionally, millennials are expected to make up 44% of the workforce by 2025.
Similarly, Forbes reports that millennials generate over a trillion dollars in consumer spending in the U.S. and now outnumber Generation X and baby boomers.
This trend is expected to continue, so companies that have not yet adapted to the needs and preferences of this new audience and begun developing appropriate strategies and actions for millennials are already behind.
One key area where strategies must evolve is marketing. Marketing plays a crucial role in understanding customers, capturing the attention of this new type of consumer, and defining the right communication channels and customer strategies.
Some refer to this shift as the marketing of the future, while others call it marketing for millennials. Regardless of the term, it is clear that the latest marketing trends are already focused on meeting millennials’ demands.
What Do Millennials Want, and What Should Companies Do?
To create marketing strategies that meet the needs of millennials, the first step is to understand who they are and what they expect from brands.
1. Personalized Digital and Social Media Experiences
A key characteristic of millennials is their strong digital presence, which sets them apart from previous generations, especially in their shopping habits. According to B2B, millennials are twice as likely as baby boomers to discover and learn about brands online. Sprout Social reports that 30% of millennials engage with brands on social media at least once a month.
Millennials expect brands not only to have an online presence but also to offer personalized shopping experiences. B2B notes that 51% of millennials believe digital shopping channels should provide more personalized solutions.
What should brands do?
To satisfy this new generation of shoppers, businesses should focus on having a strong online presence and use social media marketing to engage with them. Designing personalized shopping experiences and content is essential.
It’s crucial for organizations to invest in their digital experience.
2. Satisfactory Customer Experiences
In the article “6 Reasons Why Customer Experience Is Important and 7 Keys to Improve It,” we mentioned that 64% of companies believe that customer experience is the best strategy to enhance customer lifetime value, or in other words, to extend the customer lifecycle.
Additionally, B2B confirms that one of the aspects millennials care about most is their experience with a brand. They are twice as likely as baby boomers to leave a brand for good after a bad experience and twice as likely to recommend a brand to a friend after a good experience.
What should brands do?*
Brands should focus on improving the customer experience, listening to customer feedback, identifying pain points, and working to resolve them. To create valuable customer experiences, innovation is key. In the digital age, customer experiences must be multi-channel, and organizations should aim to create unique experiences across all channels, known as multi-experience.
3. Transparency and Quality
Another distinct trait of millennials is their skepticism, especially regarding advertising content. Millennials are less likely to trust ads, celebrity endorsements, and increasingly less likely to trust content from influencers.
However, they do trust content created by other users. According to Forbes, 97% of millennials read online reviews before buying a product, and of those, 89% say they trust the reviews.
What should brands do?
Brands should make the most of user-generated content, enhance the shopping experience with elements that demonstrate product quality, and be transparent to build brand credibility.
4. Purpose-Driven Marketing
Deloitte’s 10th Global Survey reveals that millennials and Generation Z are highly engaged in social issues, particularly racial justice, social inequality, and the environment.
Both generations believe in their individual power to drive change but also expect businesses and governments to do their part in creating a better future. Sixty percent of millennials believe that social change should be driven by powerful entities like governments and companies.
Millennials are making a conscious effort to spend their money with companies that align with their values and are more likely than other generations to stop supporting a brand that doesn’t share their values.
What should brands do?
Brands should be clear about their purpose and stay true to their values. It’s no longer enough to simply list a set of values; millennials are savvy and won’t trust brands that claim to uphold certain values but fail to act on them.
Purpose-driven marketing is more effective than ever and is practically a necessity. This approach involves taking actions that support the brand’s values rather than just listing them on a corporate website. For future generations, that approach no longer works. Businesses must now show they live up to their values through concrete actions and work to drive change both inside and outside the organization.
In the end, today’s companies must fully commit to updating their products and services, brand image, marketing strategies, and communication and advertising content if they don’t want to lose the support of the most influential generation: millennials.
Brands that succeed in appealing to this generation offer valuable, digital, multi-channel, and multi-experience customer experiences. They are transparent, mission-driven, value-driven, and focused on the future.
