As a business owner or marketing person, you are always looking to attract customers to your door, whether that’s a ‘real’ door or ‘virtual’ one. Digital marketing has given you myriad new ways to reach those prospects. But are you only concentrating on your current prospects? What about the future? What about the next generation of customers, what are you doing to attract them? Their media consumption habits are different from generations past. In this series of articles, guest contributor Christina Weidel, a senior at Belmont University, Nashville, will explore a number of digital outlets that your organization can use to reach Millennials, and how to best utilize them. From email to apps, social media and interacting, this series will discuss each major outlet in detail and explain how it can be best utilized.
First, we should define the group Millennials and who they are. Generally, the term applies to that group of young adults born from the early 80’s to about 2000; making them teens to their early 30’s at this time.
Before exploring each major outlet, let’s discuss some general tips for digital marketing to Millennials.
Connecting Accounts:
It is good practice to have all your accounts linked on each of your outlets.
This is because Millennials like to decide where they will hear from you—it makes us feel like we are in control of what advertising we consume.
Even if a Millennial finds out about your company in an email or an ad on a website, it doesn’t mean that they prefer that method of communication. Providing them with links to your Website, Twitter, Facebook etc. gives them the power to choose how they would like to hear about and interact with your company. Some will follow you on all outlets.
Many social media sites allow organizations to cross post. For example, a company can post an Instagram and simultaneously have it posted to Twitter and Facebook. With pictures, this is an acceptable practice, but with text posts it can become very redundant.
Paraphrase-Point:
In the case of text posts, the “paraphrase-point” method is a great way to cross post without being redundant. You will decide on one medium on which you want to post the majority of the information, and use the other outlets to drive consumers there. This is useful for information about new products or services, contests, events, and more.
For example, if your organization wants to release information about an upcoming “Fun in the Sun” event, choose the hub for your information: a Facebook post or Website content often works best. On this hub, you can write a lengthy post or blog with all the details about the event, its location and time, directions and parking, what it promotes and any other info necessary.
Then, use your other outlets to paraphrase, and point:
- Paraphrase: Give the most important information. “Our Fun in the Sun event is on Saturday”
- Point: Send them to where you posted the majority of information, using a link. “find out more here.”
This eliminates redundancy, while still using all outlets to get the information out.
Using this method, you get the information out to all possible consumers, whether they choose to follow you on multiple resources or not. And those who do follow you on multiple platforms won’t be frustrated with long repetitive posts.
Millennials like to feel like it is their choice to be communicated with, so give them options to be connected with you and don’t be redundant. They don’t want to be bombarded with advertising messages like the pop-up ads and spam of the past; they want to feel like have a choice in what they see from you.