Show Notes
Focus On Trials and Use
Millennial's think that use is more important than ownership. A few decades ago, owning a car or a house was seen as a sort of social benchmark. These days, millennial's are looking at their bank account and saying, “We can’t afford that!” If there’s a way to let millennial's use your product without having to pay for full ownership of it, take advantage of that. Providing a cheaper alternative to buying a product will make millennial's more willing to spend their money with you.
Mobile First
Millennial's spend more time on their smartphones than any other generation. But if you’re a business owner, this statistic works in your favor. One of the most important things you can do when it comes to marketing to millennial's is to meet them where they are. Make your ads mobile-friendly, and put them on social media platforms. Millennial's aren’t going to pay a bit of attention to an ad in the newspaper or a magazine; they will notice one that shows up in their Facebook or Instagram feed.
Give Back
Millennial's don’t have as much money as previous generations, so they spend a lot more time thinking about where it goes. Not just any company or product is worthy of getting some of their precious resources. So how does a company convince their millennial customers that they should spend their money with that company? One great way to attract millennial customers is to use part of your company’s proceeds to support a cause. Millennial's want to see that their money is helping to make a difference in the world. Agreeing to donate a part of your proceeds to a charity or to help employ underprivileged populations can draw in your millennial audience.
Be Authentic
One of the most important things to remember about millennial's is how inundated they have become with advertising. They grew up in the digital age, with advertising blaring at them everywhere from public restrooms to gas pumps. One of the best ways you can draw millennial's in is to be authentic with your media outreach. You believe your product is a good one that’s worth spending money on, right? Let that genuine enthusiasm shine through in your marketing; that realness will get millennial customers’ attention.
Do More Video
It seems like every other post on social media is an auto play video. And it’s working; 64 percent of consumers make a purchase after watching a branded social video.
With video marketing being such a powerful tool, your company can’t afford to ignore it. Make video a central part of your marketing efforts. It’ll draw millennial's in, and then you have a chance to tell them why they should choose your company.
Transcript
Christian: [00:00:00] On this episode we're talking about five tactical tips to reach that millennial audience. We're talking about mobile first giving back authenticity showing your humanity doing more video. Check it out.
Christian: [00:00:32] All right so the first thing that we have here is focus on trials and use or we talk when we talk about the news we're talking about millennials not wanting to necessarily own something right away without knowing the benefits or how much it's going to cost. I guess a few decades ago for example owning a car or a house was viewed as like social norm like the step that you need to take in order to step into adulthood you know own a car and a house and all that stuff. These days millennials are just looking to their bank accounts saying yeah we can't afford that. So if there's any way to let me know millennials use your product maybe on a trial version or maybe a scaled down version of your product where there can be a physical or digital product provide maybe an alternative or a cheaper version of it so you can make millennial's be willing to at least try it out or capture that segment just a little bit better by having this tier of lower end or cheaper product.
Aaron: [00:01:48] Yeah I think I mean no and for myself I think that what kind of plays into this is also we do a lot of research before we ever make a purchase like that. So I mean tons of research probably more research than. I mean we don't have those. There's no data on that. Maybe there is but if we're going to Beilock new software for our company maybe 10 years ago is more like Hey you guys met and like this seems pretty good. Let's go with that. But Christian and I have been spending years trying to develop and figure out what's going to be the best CRM for our company. We're still trying to figure out what's going to be the best one. So there's that. But then also look at like successful companies now based off of trials and it could be anything from a small CRM software service or car thing about car Karvonen blowing up like crazy because they give you a quote unquote trial for seven days. How many times can you go home or go drive a car for seven days and not buy it. I don't know what their close rates are but I'm guessing if they get that car the possibility of them purchasing is pretty high. So and they're feeding to a lot of audiences but especially to those Millennial buyers who really do I can I really get a BMW it's like Knill but I'm drive it for seven days and I'm going to figure out a way to justify purchasing it. Yeah.
Christian: [00:03:02] Yeah. And there's apps like Tureaud where you rent the car and I'm sure there's a bunch of other ones where you can just super easily from your phone and just rent a car. There's Airbnb where you can just rent places and sort of I mean I feel like there are partly millennials who are doing that just sort of couch surfing a mix of air BMB. Yes. And like other things instead of you know purchasing houses.
Aaron: [00:03:28] It was actually very funny. There's a guy his name is chloramine shut up to Korban he's runs American family and on a trip. But it's a new urgent care here in town. He's from Kansas City. Cool guy. Chieftan even cooler. But I was talking to him in his company is paying for him to have an MBA and be in live with another family in McKinney. Really. Yes. So before a company is paid for hotels. But it's actually cheaper for him. He gets a better experience and he has some home cooked meals. Everything like that. And instead of putting up in a hotel and paying a lot more they pay for like rent and an Air B and B. So I mean I don't think anything gets any more millennial than that.
Christian: [00:04:06] That's awesome. So speaking of every Inbee and apps and things like that you had to take into consideration that your millennial audience it's 100 percent mobile first everything that they do. A lot of the time that they spend it's going to be on their smartphone for smartphones. I mean it's been insane the amount of millennials that use and over millions.
Aaron: [00:04:30] But the next generation they're going to be even more connected with things like wearables like watches and soon probably contact lenses and glasses glasses and a bunch of crazy stuff that you're going to be able to wear on your body and give you work capabilities that you have right now. So mobile first should be one of the things that you definitely have to concentrate whenever you're trying to reach that millennial audience. We're talking about not just creating mobile friendly websites but even the graphics and things that you put out on on social media. When we were talking about mobile first. Also thinking about and we talked about this in a previous episode was people a lot of people watch videos without the sound. So take that into consideration. You know you have to create captions for all your videos or put a lot of words on your videos. So that you know you're capturing the audience a little bit better. Besides websites besides social you're also thinking about the experience that they're having. So a lot of them might not want to I guess talk on the phone for example. So you probably need to incorporate some sort of you know chat or messaging option for them to be able to from their phones. Just quickly click click click click click click click click and communicate with you. Easier than even sending e-mail or god forbid getting on the phone. Like that's a huge thing with millennials like they don't want to necessarily get on the phone and talk to someone they're more comfortable text messaging or chatting with someone because of how they were brought up. And even I mean we're Millennials so our generation we were brought up with Amazon messenger unlike the other one I see. You know. Yeah I and it was I said something like that yeah. But yeah we're like we were always chatting with our friends. I mean we're we grew up with that generation of like text messaging and chatting with people. So it's very important to incorporate all these things we're not just saying oh we'll friend websites but think about the whole Shrek spectrum of things and how do you contact them even like think about like promotions for example like when you're running a coupon promotional like even sending them an e-mail with a coupon might not be a good idea. It might be better to send them a text. You know with a coupon so be thinking about all those things. So that's what we say just mobile first. As a rule to reach that.
Christian: [00:07:06] Yeah I think it is a personal story. I talked to my tried to talk to my family every week and the hardest person to get a hold of is my sister Alex. She's the youngest and she'll be messaging me on Snapchat or Instagram. And then two minutes later I'll call her and no answer. And then I sort to like FaceTime or something and maybe she'll pick up because she's got her hands busy or whatever. But most of the time she didn't answer that way and then I'm like hey what are you doing. She messaged me back in 15 seconds on snap chat like why did you say Oh.
Aaron: [00:07:37] You called him like that I called like seriously. So I'm sure some of you parents are probably like this is my everyday life.
Christian: [00:07:45] But you got to meet people where they're at. And as a business owner it makes so much more sense to spend time where they're at versus trying to force them to come into your playground when it's not probably going to happen. All right. So if this is your first time thank you. This is your Ninetieth time. Thank you. My Headphones kind of cut off there but we want to thank you guys for listening.
Aaron: [00:08:17] Thank you for subscribing and thank you for consuming our content. We don't take that lightly. If you're a business owner or even listening to us for a while and you need help with your website it's not mobile friendly like we're talking about. It's not mobile anything. It's like one of those Pyncheon zoom websites. Just give us a call or actually. We're talking about what else you want you to send us an e-mail hello at branding does SEO or go to Instagram or Facebook we're all at branding. And if you're trying to reach a millennial audience right now and you don't have a mobile Web site. Her mobile friendly web site. It's time to get that fixed. And we are happy to help you do that.
Christian: [00:09:02] We're back. I think we're back cold. We are back in ironically number three. Here is given back.
Aaron: [00:09:12] It's so funny. One of our one of our big areas on our vision board is Philly. Wow.
Christian: [00:09:19] State of I couldn't say February I can't say philanthropy. Wow. I can't say the word philanthropy.
Aaron: [00:09:27] So that's not just because we want to do that it's just more of like kind of I don't know. I think it's more way we were brought up or the way that we've interacted with culture or just us in general. Like I said we're more of a millennial audience. But our focus is to give back in one way shape or form about something that we care about in the same thing that you as a business owner should do is figure out a way that you can give back to your community to a bigger cause to give to something that you already care about. If you're a travel company why don't you give back to people for like Charity Water where everything you know every chip you go on you donate new socks to people. In a country of need that's going to and that's going to make a decision a make or break decision for a lot of people. And we talked earlier about millennials you know looking at their bank account. What's funny is that look at their bank account probably not make a smart decision but spend more money on the company who says hey we're going to give back versus we're not. As an example I can get running socks from wherever but I actually have been recently going after Baamba as my grandma purchased and probably about five years ago. But I really like them. However I go back to them because every sock that's purchased another was donated and if you pay 20 dollars for a sock that's kind of expensive it's a little crazy it could buy two pair but every sock is donated to a family in need or a country in need of socks so that's just a live example a real example of you know spending probably too much on socks. But I believe behind the purpose behind that.
Christian: [00:11:03] And yet a lot of millennials also look at when they're purchasing something not just who you support but making sure that you know maybe you sold some physical product and they want to make sure that the physical product is made in a sustainable environment you know and that their workers are compensated well. And it's not just some sweat shop in Thailand or wherever. So millennials do care about that stuff. And they also care about the environment. I think the environment is a huge thing for millennials. And the materials and ingredients potentially that you could be using on your product is very important that you're not just kind of moves into our next point to and transparent you know and talking about how you are giving back or how hard you protect the environment. You are making an effort. You know on this world you know because that's what Millennials care about.
Aaron: [00:12:06] Yeah and if we look at it even in our own world so some of you guys may or may not know who like Pat Flynn or jointly Dumas's are but they run very successful podcasts and something that they do to be a little bit more authentic and more transparent. I think that Patston just does us exceptionally well is he produces a monthly report of his income. Look this is where I spent money last month. This is where I spent money here. This is what I spent in marketing this is how much I made it very transparent about how much money the business makes which if you think about that now. I mean that's crazy for us to just announce you know this is how much we're making right now. And some people would be turned away from another like well they're making too much money or they're doing too much here. But Kathleen does a really good exam a good job of just being authentic and saying look I'm good at what I do. But I also want to use this as an example for you to either be inspired by it or just really know how transparent and how real I am because if I'm real about my numbers in my business then I'm probably going to be pretty real about everything else.
Christian: [00:13:09] And that's definitely our number four point here. Our tactical team to reach an audience is to be authentic and to show that authenticity through everything that you're doing your website your social media this is generation who has been brought up with advertising overload. You know before it was maybe billboards magazines and TVs and radio but now it's you know your personal devices our watches our cars everything I mean everything we use is bombarded with with advertising and marketing it's all around us. And the best way to reach that Miller audience is to be authentic to be upfront about everything that you do and how you do it and you know to be OK with messing up then that's another big point. A lot of people you know don't realize that you know showing your humanity through through through social channels you're marketing your advertising. It's a great way to you know assure her authenticity and reach that audience.
Aaron: [00:14:16] Yeah I think it's more relatable too because we I guess if you look at Instagram it's more like the highlight reel or Facebook it's maybe a Hajra highlight reel but for somebody to be able to relate and the like oh look Kristen can't see February and Erin can't say philanthropy which I said it correctly thing. I think you know like oh I have trouble with that too. For whatever reason that may just be something for somebody else to be like hey look I have trouble with that too. I can relate to these guys. Aren't they supposed to be professionals on this podcast and it's like no we're real people too. And hopefully the guy that grabs more people to us versus against us so just feels that yeah hopefully if you stop listening because we can't say forever. Then we're really sorry just send us a message and just tell us that you're going to follow us there. So we don't feel as bad. All right. Number five we've been preaching this since the start of the company since inception of the company is video and we list.
Christian: [00:15:18] I personally tell people at least once or twice a week you got to do this in video. You've got to do this in video like you've got to get over the fear of doing this on camera. But I think a huge trend we're going to start seeing now is the putting that camera in front of your face before it's like a video of somebody else recording it. But now it's just more of that personifying that brain and if we're talking to a small business owner you've got to get that camera in front of your face and just be real because people can see expressions and it's the best way to really kind of figure out who this person is and you can tell a lot about somebody from a video and if you have a listen to our YouTube episode. We kind of talk about that a little bit previously a different episode but go check out how impactful videos right now as a different segue. But you need to do some more video.
Aaron: [00:16:07] Yeah and live video too. Yes very important. And again I mean the last thing the live video component also shows the number for just being authentic and showing your humanity. It's a great way to do that. And yeah I think you know millennials will definitely feel more gravitate towards you because you know you're being upfront with everything and using the technology that they're using a lot of them are. It's weird to think about this but you know when we were growing up we were doing you know Amazon messenger and chat like that and we were communicating that way. Then probably moved into more texting. And now kids are using you know things like snapchat but they're sending a picture or a video. Every single time that they say something you know. And it's weird but you know it's what they're doing and they're using that stuff so you should be also using some of the same thing that they're using and consuming. So it's very important to definitely do video. Do it often and do live video as well. Yes.
Christian: [00:17:13] All right. So this is your first time. Make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode. We come out every Monday. Is the marketing datives your new favorite local marketing podcast. Yeah that's a lot. That's a mouthful. But just subscribe and you don't have to remember. And if this is you know your fiftieth time listening make sure you go over to iTunes or choose iTunes probably get go over to iTunes. Please leave us an honest radio interview so we know how to continue to make us podcast better for you. And we will talk to you guys next week.
Aaron: [00:17:49] The marketing Natives podcast.