For plenty of years now there has been a lot of buzz around marketing new young people and the impact of ‘millennials’ on the impact of the consumer and marketing world. It’s no surprise that marketers have such a huge focus on this audience, with the majority of consumers falling into the 18-34 year old bracket and with a number of features that make them the perfect audience to market to.
However, like any age demographic, perhaps even more so than the generations above, those in the 18-34 market or so called ‘millennials’ suffer beneath labels and generalisations that often only apply to smaller amounts of people or simply aren’t true at all.
Without talking to young people it can be hard for marketers, especially older marketers to get a realistic view of how this audience think and behave, leading to assumptions that can not only negatively affect your marketing efforts but can actually alienate you from this audience. Nobody can give you an insight quite like a member of generation Y themselves, so here’s 4 of the most common, and most aggravating, misconceptions about millennials that need to be addressed.
We’re Not Disloyal, We Just Have More Options
While it’s true that many people within this audience can be picky and often buy from various different brands, it doesn’t mean we lack brand loyalty. The fact is young people are naturally more open to trying out new things, adapting to new platforms, new sites and new brands easily, meaning they’re more willing to discover new brands instead of simply to sticking to one for life.
With so many options out there, instead of tarnishing everyone within a certain group as disloyal, you need to be more creative and experiment with new techniques in order to see that you audience come back. By offering loyalty schemes, discounts and even rewards for things such as birthdays and Christmas, you can increase customer loyalty and potentially take away the options by beating what your competition offer.
We’re About Growth, Not Entitlement
It’s not uncommon for marketers to fall under the illusions that all people within the ‘millennial’ bracket are entitled, expecting to get something for nothing or expecting too much from a businesses or organisation. However this is often not the case, at least not for the majority of people, for the most part we work hard for our things and it’s not an unrealistic expectation to receive a service that won’t let us down, what might seem like entitlement is just people knowing what they want and asking for it.
Don’t confuse entitled with confident, consumers of all ages want to feel confident about working with or buying from a brand, don’t fall into the trap of generalising a certain age group of behaving a certain way when it comes to your brand.
We’re Looking For Value
Younger audiences aren’t really shallow as you’d really expect, while it’s true most people do want to still appreciate a brand on face value or based on their brand personality, the reality is that you still need to provide facts to your audience and do so in an upfront way, telling people exactly what your message is and how it includes and concern them. By showing your audience why they should care about what you do honestly, you can encourage them to pay your brand attention.
Young people these days are more tuned in that ever and are very aware of when something is being hidden from them or might seem too good to be true, which is why brands need to be completely honest and transparent when it comes to looking to appeal to these audiences, after all ‘millennials’ are looking for value from their brands, not just the perks.
We Don’t Only Care About Social Media
One of the biggest misconceptions marketers make with trying to appeal to younger audiences is their obsession with trying to make everything about social media, as though everyone under the age of 35 does nothing other than live online. While yes you should be
aiming to have accounts on at least two social media platforms, including Facebook, there’s no reason for brands to try too hard on social media platforms.
Audiences want shareable content that stands out and makes an impact, yet still manages to offer relevant information, however we don’t need brands to overshare details, people don’t want their timelines filled with the same content, it can come off as too much, causing people to unfollow a brand on social media and their brand in general.
The ‘millennial’ audience are rapidly becoming one of the most important and most powerful consumers and shouldn’t be ignored. By having an understanding into how they really feel and think, you can discover new ways to reach out to audiences in an authentic way that won’t patronise audiences or leave them feeling like you don’t really understand what they want, giving you the opportunity to increase sales, leads and ultimately helping build your customer base.
