If you’re a company looking to increase revenue in the next decade, it is a must that you pay great attention to Millennials. Wonder why? In 10 years, this generation will make up 75% of the workforce. In fact, 46% of potential B2B buyers are Millennials. If you don’t think you need to know them now, think again.
An industry sector that doesn’t get enough digital marketing play are manufacturers. In this digital age, no industry can afford to stay behind on how to maximize their revenue and increase profits through digital marketing. Your customers are in the online space, all day long, and are seeking to connect with you. Why not meet them where they like to be seen, and begin forming a strong relationship? Companies of all sizes and types have found great success with digital marketing, and it’s time manufacturers caught up.
The Why
Millennials will search for your services and/or products before they know what they want, and if you can’t be found online (either through search or on social media), you will get overlooked. When you begin to get overlooked, you will no longer be a contender. Solely relying on offline marketing tactics can eventually leave your company in the red.
That is why, we cannot stress enough the importance in utilizing marketing solutions for manufacturers to bring your company at the forefront of this generation, who carries strong purchasing power and dominant workforce space.
Here Are 3 Solid Tips to Begin Your Marketing to Millennials Journey:
1. Listen to them and appeal to their interest
The success of any marketing campaign rests on the level of understanding you have about your target audience. Understand what topics relate to your Millennial buyer. One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is to assume that they know what their target market wants. Listen to the online chatter to uncover their true pain points. Show how your product/service can ease that pain. A genuine interest in social issues will grab the attention of this generation as much as the promotion of useful and entertaining content.
Millennials are looking for businesses that offer thought provoking and intelligent information within their industry. Remember, first they research the industry then they move onto specific businesses. Once your company has been identified as a business of interest, your marketing and messaging should shift from industry related to brand specific marketing. At this stage you want to make sure your product or service is addressing at least one of your buyer’s needs. Make sure your message helps them understand how your product can add value to them, how it can help make them look good at work, and be informative yet entertaining. This helps drive value to the conversation with Millennials.
Don’t take our word for it. Monitor the tone and context of online conversations to identify how Millennials interact with your industry. In doing so, you will be developing an understanding of how to frame a message that appeals best to your target audience.
2. Enhance the social experience to build social proof
Millennials grew up with social media, therefore properly incorporating this platform into your strategy is essential to success. Far too often businesses think that if they build it they will come. As you may have learned, it’s not that easy. Merely having a website and a social media presence is not good enough to establish a relationship with your buyers. A sustainable social strategy requires engaging in conversation with your market.
- Make sure you are responding to the comments being made by your customers.
- Build your business as an industry expert by offering solutions to the buyers’ problems through social media.
- Allow your audience to ideate along with you on your product development. By starting conversations around your product and gathering feedback from Millennials, you also increase their engagement levels. Your audience will love the chance to have a voice and get involved with your brand.
When done correctly, social media can be an effective tool to build your credibility with Millennials. Social proof often stands as a testament of how much your products satisfy the needs of your customers. For Millennials, social proof is a trust indicator showing them what their peers think about the product. Remember, as they get further down the buying funnel they place a high value on recommendations from family and friends, even in B2B purchases. So whether it is comments or shares on Facebook, retweets or comments on Twitter, reviews of products on your website or review sites, all these social activities build and deepen relationships with your customers. Display the tweets or Facebook posts related to your products on your website for further verification of this social proof.
3. Utilize cross channel/integrated marketing tactics
Millennials consume content across multiple devices. Implement a cross-channel digital marketing plan to maximize your digital marketing efforts with Millennials. This way, whether they are on their workstation, their mobiles or tablets, Millennials who are prone to always stay connected will have access to your message. Even while at work, this generation is using their mobile devices to do research related to their job function. By creating a cross channel marketing plan which encompasses email, video, and various digital programs, you can see increased engagement and conversions. Since Millennials use a mixture of devices to find more information about your industry and product category, you can no longer concentrate on a single channel for success. You have to create a seamless customer experience across numerous devices.
When your message isn’t integrated across channels it can cause consumer confusion. This happens when you plan different marketing strategies for each channel (mobile, email, social media, etc…). When your message is segregated it is unclear, unorganized and runs the risk of being overlooked and therefore not communicated to your target market. Money is wasted and return on investment is low when your message is fragmented.
As you can see, there’s an array of research driven solutions to best suit your digital marketing needs, and we are here to help. A successful online marketing campaign, takes into great consideration, their marketing strategy, to effectively pinpoint where the greatest return on investment will come from. Let the experts guide you every step of the way.
