Marketing to Millennials: What You Need to Know

Millennials are often viewed as a very unique generational cohort—they were the first generation to grow up with the internet; they prefer saving money to starting families, and they spend money on priorities that prior cohorts don’t really understand. To best market to these tech-savvy, financially adept consumers, familiarize yourself with their spending habits and common behaviors.

What’s important to the millennial spender?

While details such as product quality and social responsibility matter to certain shoppers in every generational cohort, millennials were the first generation to popularize purchases with these specific intents, among others. When deciding how to market to millennials, keep these critical factors in mind.

• Environmental impact. Emphasize the positive societal impact your products have in your advertising. Millennials often choose the eco-friendly or ethical option, even if it costs a bit more.
• Don’t tell them what to do. Instead of using direct selling through bottom-of-funnel marketing, focus on being informative and letting millennial shoppers come to you.
• Offer subscriptions. Millennials are more likely to favor subscription-based business models where they can opt out of a product or service at any time.
• Utilize the internet. With the majority of millennials preferring online shopping to in-person shopping (even for groceries), you’ll want to cater much of your marketing efforts to online formats. In order to engage your audience, it’s a good idea to diversify the ways you reach them through blog posts, video content, and social media content.

Before increasing marketing spend, it’s important to know your audience. Marketing to millennials doesn’t have to be tricky, as long as you remember the trends that make them the unique cohort they are.