With audience numbers like that, it’s nearly impossible to ignore audio when creating a comprehensive marketing strategy. It’s even more important if you’re trying to reach millennials. 

The “in between” generation has grown up adapting to technology without being digital natives. As a result, they know what it means to struggle with things like screen fatigue, and they’re regularly looking for ways to disengage from the visuals. 78% of Millennials are feeling digital fatigue, and the ability to listen without watching helps ameliorate that growing concern. 

Marketing to Millennials Via Audio Channels

With so many middle-aged individuals turning to streaming platforms, especially audio ones, these areas of the digital landscape are becoming critical spaces where marketers can win over millennial consumers. Bob Pittman, CEO of iHeartMedia, pointed out that audio represents a third of daily media use for the average consumer. This is a crucial touchpoint that allows advertisers to maintain the ability to stay in contact more consistently. 

Along with greater exposure, audio content on platforms like SiriusXM and Spotify offers several benefits that distinguish it as a powerful marketing medium. For instance, it is useful for brand awareness. This is due to its ubiquitous and accessible nature, thanks to mobile phones and a wide variety of content creators. It also empowers marketing strategies by providing cost-effective access to popular consumer channels.

Audio streaming can also be highly targeted toward demographics, location, and even content context. This facilitates a deeper emotional connection and sense of loyalty, which is an important advertising factor for the mid-aged generation.

Jeff Fromm wrote the book “Marketing to Millennials” and recently challenged the concept that younger generations are fickle and trend-chasing. In reality, he said, they have strong convictions and are fiercely loyalty-engaged. He even called Gen Z “the loyalty-native generation.” Millennials are similarly convicted consumers who are looking for reasons to loyally patronize brands. Audio content facilitates a unique connection that can reinforce this brand loyalty. 

How to Engage With Millennial Audiences on Streaming Platforms

While the streaming world is a great way to connect with Millennials in theory, it takes solid advanced planning anchored by specific, achievable goals to drive success. This is largely due to the decentralized nature of the industry, along with its many different forms of content, and the fact that its listeners are spread out across a wide variety of audiences. 

Here are three key steps to help you get the most out of your audio marketing investment.

1. Start Small

Audio advertising scales like no other marketing channel. You can purchase a short ad for a niche audience for pennies on the dollar compared to traditional marketing packages. At the same time, you can spend tens of millions of dollars to scale your reach.

Don’t be afraid to start small. Use each opportunity as an experiment. Test streaming platforms, channels, and podcasts. Track results and measure them against clear KPIs. 

2. Streamline Your Strategy

Technology is a game-changer — and in the area of audio content, it is already making things more efficient and effective than ever before. 

Platforms like AudioGo give you access to more than tens of millions of listeners with hundreds of targeting options. You can even use AI to create ads from scratch. Streamlined options like this make it much easier to execute effective audio ad campaigns with limited knowledge, networks, and resources.

3. Use Trends 

Trends can help you unlock additional synergy in an audio streaming campaign. For instance:

• Placing ads in personalized playlists allows you to curate memorable, hyper-relevant moments.
• Localized ads on national streaming services can now target key demographics, allowing you to tap into larger audio shows and experiences without wasting marketing dollars.
• Interactive ad experiences allow listeners to click or use voice-enabled audio tools to actively participate and engage with ads, rather than passively listening.

Reaching Millennials Through Streaming Audio

Streaming audio channels are an effective way for marketers to reach Millennial consumers. From targeted reach to mass appeal, low cost to scalable strategy, the potential in the audio realm is huge. It is a necessity in any modern marketing plan seeking to reach a digitally-savvy, screen-saturated generation looking for relevance and connection, even in their advertising.

The post Why Marketing on Streaming Platforms is the Way to Win Over Millennial Consumers appeared first on Millennial Marketing.

Even these homebody-ish, family-oriented types still need strong incentives in order to actually come into the office. Why get on the subway or the highway to sit in a dull gray cubicle doing tasks they could do in the tub? To get millennials out the front door and into your office suite, you’ll have to work harder than ever. Here are some ways to create an office environment that might make millennials show up more often.

1. Welcome Their Kids

As much as Baby Boomers want to believe that Millennials are still kids, most are now in their 30s and 40s. While folks in general are more hesitant to have children these days, if anyone’s making babies, it’s this generation. Millennial child-rearers are also much more likely to work than to be stay at home parents. As a result, your office space needs to appeal to parents who’d rather work from home and watch their kids.

One fun option is to include a jungle gym or kid-friendly outdoor fitness equipment on your office campus, for employees and their families. Playgroundequipment.com offers a variety of sets and themes to please both children and adults alike. Even Millennial workers and others who don’t have kids will appreciate these interactive playsets. Consider the slides, ball pits, and other giant, interactive toys at the offices of Google, Red Bull, and Youtube.

2. Keep Them Cozy

Millennials love their creature comforts, like a fresh cup of Starbucks, a favorite pen, or a cozy armchair to relax in. Your goal should be to make the office almost as relaxing a place to be as their own house or apartment. Unless they’re client-facing (and sometimes, even then), allow your employees to dress on the casual side. Make furniture comfortable, and offer lots of amenities like free, high-quality beverages, snacks, toiletries, and more.

For many Millennials, having lots of introvert time and a safe space for their belongings is absolutely key. Office bathrooms should offer absolute privacy, with fully-closing doors or at least no stall gaps. A nice option is to offer employees noise-canceling headphones, and clear systems to let others know when they don’t want to be disturbed. Whatever you do, DO NOT implement a hot desking system — let employees claim, decorate, and nest into their own desks.

3. Help Them Get Fit

Gym memberships can get expensive, so including one with the job can be a major draw for Millennials. But a single, creaky treadmill and a recumbent bike with sticky handlebars just won’t make the cut for this generation. Sure, you may not have the funds for a full-size Equinox in your single-floor office suite. But you can upgrade with an equipment makeover, adding trendy items like new Peloton bikes, Ergatta rowers, or a TRX.

Another perk could be to offer onsite fitness classes or a discounted package with a personal trainer. Millennials want to get (and stay) fit, but they’re also terrified of doing it “wrong” or without enough guidance. Some companies offer fitness challenges, where employees compete with each other to walk the most steps or workout the most. However, while these programs can boost short-term engagement and camaraderie, they don’t tend to provide lasting results.

4. Feed Them

Members of this generation are extremely health conscious, but seemingly only when they want to be. They learn the rules of Whole30 or the Paleo diet, or carry Rx bars in their purses to avoid undue carbs. That’s until the diet is over, or they give up a couple of days or weeks into their latest health kick. Then, they find themselves in hot pursuit of the spiciest chicken wing, the cheesiest quesadilla, or the crispiest mozzarella stick. 

Unfortunately, the food options for most American office workers satisfy neither of these dietary habits. Most Millennials have to make a choice between prepping and microwaving sad homemade lunches, eating fast food, or paying $20+ for a fancy salad. Your office can stand out by offering better options, like tasty catering or even an onsite restaurant. You could also offer a fully-stocked onsite kitchen for employees, along with a time-slot sign-up sheet and someone paid to clean it.

5. Offer Onsite Learning Opportunities

Millennials love learning: they’re the most educated generation yet and always seeking out more knowledge. They also want to increase their earning potential, fight financial insecurity and level up their careers. To pique their interest in coming into the office, offer onsite educational opportunities of all kinds. Whether it’s training for a new role, learning a new software program, or even a random new skill, they’re likely to engage.

Offering onsite trainings to qualify them for new positions or departments are always an excellent start. However, you can expand your offerings by bringing in well-known lecturers, or offering unrelated perks like cooking classes or language lessons. Just make sure these opportunities don’t cut into their lunch hours, or otherwise add additional stress. Instead, try cutting work time short to accommodate them — while still paying them for every minute in the office. 

Millennials in the Wild

Getting millennials to venture out the front door and into the concrete-paved jungle of your office space is a tall order. To make it work, you’ll have to sweeten the deal by catering to their highest values and most important habits. Making your office fun and engaging, while offering the comforts of home is a really good start. Just remember, they’d always rather be home, so do your best to make the office feel like a second one.

The post 5 Ways to Make Your Office Space More Marketable to Millennials appeared first on Millennial Marketing.

Why Brand Awareness Among Millennials Matters So Much

Millennials have officially surpassed baby boomers as America’s largest generation. And, before too long, they will hold more wealth than any generation in history ever has. Along with that wealth comes spending power and the ability to make or break businesses and entire industries.

Cheap marketing is all the rage right now. Brands are looking for the cheapest possible ways to increase impressions and clicks while keeping the cost per acquisition down. And while there’s nothing wrong with this approach – these are key metrics of successful marketing – it often breeds shortsighted strategies. In the pursuit of cheap results, marketers often use cheap techniques. Brand awareness is often the casualty, which is a costly mistake for companies that need the buy-in and support of millennials.

Brand awareness is ultimately the probability that a customer recognizes your brand, product, or service when it’s time to purchase. In fast-moving, highly-saturated markets where businesses want instant gratification, it can be tempting to skip over establishing brand awareness. However, it’s a critical factor in grabbing attention.

“When it comes to purchasing decisions, studies show that the brands consumers recognize most are more likely to be included in their consideration sets,” writes Revecka Jallad of Forbes Council. “In fact, 75% of shoppers said they are more likely to purchase from a company that knows their name and purchase history.”

When you zoom in to look at millennials in particular, 76 percent say they’re “more likely to trust a new product if it’s made by a brand they already know.” In other words, brand awareness has a direct impact on purchase decisions. 

If you want to build your brand for the long haul and set it up for success, building brand awareness is a must. And while it’s admittedly easier said than done, there are plenty of techniques you can use to accelerate your results.

4 Tips for Driving Brand Awareness With Millennials

Every brand is going to have a unique approach that requires careful, tactful execution. But when you think in broad terms of connecting with the millennial demographic, here are several helpful tips:

1. Create Compelling Content

Content is the cornerstone of online brand visibility. Engaging, valuable content draws people in and fosters connection. In order to be successful, you need compelling ideas as well as diverse formats. This may include a combination of blogs, videos, infographics, podcasts, and interactive content to cater to different audience preferences.

When carving out a content strategy, make it a point to conduct keyword research so you understand what your audience is looking for. You can then develop content around those topics. This will increase your relevancy and appeal to different corners of your niche.

At the end of the day, creating compelling content that lifts your brand awareness is more about quality than quantity. Focus on creating high-quality content that will deliver long-term value, rather than a bunch of cheap, fleeting content that has no relevance after a few days.

If you want to ensure your content gets more eyeballs on it, you’ll want some sort of public relations strategy that helps you secure placement. A PR company, like Rankin PR, can use their network to both write and facilitate placement of those articles in top-tier publications. This is something that the average brand has trouble doing on a consistent basis.

2. Embrace Social Media

With baby boomers and Gen Xers, there will always be some innate level of hesitancy and distrust of social media. That’s not the case with millennials – they put their complete faith in it, as it’s what they’ve known for most of (if not all) their lives.

Winning with social media marketing isn’t not just about “going viral” and getting as many impressions as possible. When utilized correctly, it’s also very much a 1-to-1 engagement tool.

Foster engagement with millennial users by initiating conversations, responding promptly to comments and messages, and creating shareable content. Leverage user-generated content and user testimonials to build trust and credibility. You can do this through a combination of content that’s educational, entertaining, and promotional. 

3. Stop Selling and Start Telling…Stories

If your marketing is built around hard sales pitches, you’re going to find it challenging to truly connect with millennials in a meaningful way.

“As consumers, millennials are less likely to fall for traditional pitches and high-pressure sales tactics,” Sparklight explains. “They’re wired to learn, and they expect businesses to provide insights and access to information that helps them understand the brands they’re buying from.”

The key to building brand awareness with millennials is to get good at telling compelling stories. This can come in the form of feature stories, client testimonials, or even long-form video. (In fact, video might be the most effective option when you’re pursuing millennials, as they tend to connect with it better than any other content medium.)

4. Optimize With SEO Tactics

While it’s arguably getting more difficult to rank for search in a world where thousands of websites are created on a daily basis, it’s still something that’s possible and worth pursuing.

A good search engine optimization (SEO) strategy will give you a chance to earn organic clicks and visibility for your brand – even if you don’t have a massive advertising budget. This makes it one of the most helpful things you can do.

Adding it All Up

Building brand awareness with millennials is a long-term play that requires persistence, patience, and a willingness to stay true to your brand identity while regularly pivoting and adapting to new strategies. 

When you combine brand awareness with strategic marketing and advertising, good things happen. It’s probably better to get started sooner rather than later!

The post 4 Tips for Driving Brand Awareness With Millennials appeared first on Millennial Marketing.

The question is, how can companies continue to reach this key demographic?

Here are four ways you can up your millennial marketing game to reach millennials with your messages and guide them toward the sales funnels.

1. Empower Self-Service (Even in Sales)

Self-service content is a popular way for businesses to offer customer support. How-to documents, blog articles, and chatbots help customers after the point of purchase. However, they also can and should be a key part of the selling experience. Educational content with targeted CTAs can guide consumers through the sales funnel all on their own.

The good news here is that a hands-off approach to the customer journey often leads to a more confident and positive sales experience. Kristin Young, account director at the content advertising company Nativo, points out that when a customer decides to use a product or service independently, it creates a more powerful choice. 

“When [consumers] decide independently on your product or service,” Young explains, “it becomes a much more powerful choice on their end.” The marketer adds that shoppers who do their own research and choose a product on their own establish a sense of psychological ownership over that product or service.

2. Stop Equating Millennials and Gen Zers

Millennials and Gen Zers are groups made up of relatively young adults. But they aren’t the same. On the contrary, as someone who has spent a lot of time studying consumer trends, sustainability, and innovation, I’ve found there are many nuances between the two younger generations. 

For instance, Gen Z is often willing to take greater action to enforce a commercially related belief. However, Millennials stand out due to their willingness to learn. This makes prioritizing educational content for Millennials important. 

One ironic similarity is that they both share a dislike for being treated as anything less than unique. Don’t lump the two groups together in your marketing strategy. It will backfire.

3. Keep Using Different Kinds of Content (Especially Social Media Influencers)

As you look for ways to educate and build up knowledge of your industry in your Millennial buyers, try to do so through a variety of media. This includes videos, webinars, podcasts, influencer relationships, and thought leadership articles.

Using a multi-faceted approach to content is one that 21st-century marketers know well. If I can call one of these out above the others, too, working with social media influencers is a particularly synergistic way to make the most of social media marketing.

This helps a brand’s message cut through the clutter and reach an audience that has already established trust with a particular online personality. Content, and especially social media content, remains a top priority for Millennial marketing. Influencers make it possible to remain effective within that medium.

4. Lean on Authenticity and Innovation

A natural side effect of the desire to learn is that Millennials can feel like they’ve seen it all. They aren’t surprised by traditional messages and aren’t easily convinced by well-worn marketing activities.

This makes innovation a key factor in reaching Millennial audiences. Marketers must come up with new and exciting ways to reach this key demographic. However, they must also couple this with a willingness to remain authentic and honest as they go along.

Camilla Dudley, writing for X Business (formerly Twitter), reports that 90% of Millennials prioritize authenticity as a factor when supporting a brand. Dudley suggests several creative ways to integrate authenticity into fun and attractive marketing, such as telling a brand story, using micro-influencers (see tip 3), and working with user-generated content.

As they enter middle age, Millennials remain a primary target for marketers. They are numerous, have growing needs, and are generating wealth more than ever before. As they target Millennials, marketers must keep their messaging fresh and engaging. Use the tips above to breathe new life into your marketing strategy so that you can continue to craft promotional assets that resonate with one of the most important demographics in the market.

The post 4 Ways to Elevate Your Millennial Marketing Game appeared first on Millennial Marketing.

Furthermore, how do you get your business to stop looking at sustainability as an afterthought – a ‘nice-to-have’ when everything else is going well – and start viewing it as a core element of your strategic focus so that you can enhance your marketing? We’re going to explore all of that (and more) in this article.

The Why of Sustainability in Business

As you’ve probably noticed, there’s been a significant shift in the environmental focus of businesses over the past 15 years. More specifically, there’s been a massive pivot over the past five years, as millennial consumers have started to demand that companies become more responsible with their environmental footprints. 

According to one study,  60% of Gen Z and millennials only buy eco-friendly brands. And additional reports indicate that a substantial majority of consumers prefer purchasing from brands committed to sustainability. 

Moreover, an increasing number of buyers actively look for products and services with lower environmental footprints, reflecting a broader societal shift towards conscientious consumption.

This is more than a trend. This is a movement that requires businesses to make strategic decisions about the direction they take if they want to reach and engage millennials with more compelling marketing messages that resonate on a deep level.

How to Give Yourself a Greener Marketing Message

Every business model is different. And your company faces certain limitations and restraints that others do not. Having said that, here are some of the most accessible ways to move in a greener direction that allows you to enhance your marketing messages to millennials.

1. Embrace Ethical Sourcing

Most companies just work with the least expensive and most reliable suppliers they can find. But if you’re going to prioritize eco-friendliness, you need to embrace a posture of ethical sourcing. This means evaluating supply chains to ensure fair labor practices, responsible resource extraction, and humane treatment.

2. Reduce Waste

Businesses often produce significant amounts of waste, which negatively impact their local communities and the larger environment. Reducing this waste should be a major focus of your emphasis on going green. 

Businesses can minimize waste by optimizing inventory management, reducing overstocking, and implementing innovative packaging solutions. From utilizing biodegradable materials to adopting reusable packaging, these steps can significantly curtail your environmental impact.

3. Partner With Eco-Friendly Companies

There are businesses in your industry and further up and down your supply chain that are equally focused on sustainability. You need to find these companies and collaborate with them as much as possible. By building partnerships with these companies, you can ensure environmentally friendly practices are honored across the entire supply chain. 

This includes not just physical products, but digital products as well. Even something like web design and development should be up for evaluation. Many companies are transitioning to Umbraco as a more sensible option that’s far more efficient and environmentally friendly than typical CMS platforms.

When you partner with eco-friendly companies, you’re able to reference this in your marketing messages. Because you have total confidence in every stage of your supply chain, you can make more specific and powerful claims.

4. Develop Sustainable Products

Rethink product design to incorporate recyclable or biodegradable materials. This will reduce waste generation and give you “brownie points” with millennial customers who are big on minimizing waste after a product is opened and used. This approach aligns with the circular economy concept, prolonging the lifespan of materials and minimizing environmental harm.

Sustainable packaging and materials are essentially an independent marketing mechanism. When people see a sustainable product on the shel, it’s like a mini billboard that speaks to them and communicates your commitment to being green. 

Give Your Business a Marketing Edge With Millennial Consumers

Business leaders usually go about “green” marketing in the wrong way. They assume that it’s about creating an image of how eco-friendly their company is. But that’s not it at all. That’s the “fake” way, which discerning millennial consumers see right through.

If you want your marketing messages to be defined by sustainability and minimized environmental impact, you need to actually transform your business around these ideas. Once your business has a green identity, your marketing messages will naturally flow out of this – leading to genuine content, ads, and materials that build trust with millennials.

The post How to Give Your Business a Sustainability ‘Edge’ With Millennials appeared first on Millennial Marketing.

Millennials also differ significantly from previous generations in terms of their values and behavior.

How to Start Creating Better Content for Millennials

Here’s how to create better content that will truly resonate with this age group. 

1. Build a Content Pillar Strategy

In order to create better content that resonates with millennials, you’ll first need to make sure they can find it. You’ll need strong SEO and demand generation strategies to make this happen. SEO enables your content to rank well on Google and social media platforms. Demand generation ensures that you’re covering topics that are truly relevant to this demographic. 

This is where content pillars come into play. A content pillar is a long-form piece of evergreen content that organically incorporates a large volume of keywords for SEO optimization. This content pillar is then tied to many smaller blog posts that answer questions your audience is asking. By addressing relevant topics in more detail, these posts will draw millennial consumers who are searching for what your company offers. And because millennials want helpful, informative content, a pillar strategy is primed to satisfy them.

This strategy is an excellent way to maximize SEO without sacrificing quality or readability. It also creates a logical, organized content road map for interested visitors to follow. 

2. Focus on Authenticity, Not Promotion

A whopping 90% of millennials cite authenticity as one of their most important considerations when deciding which brands to buy from. Content that’s overly commercial is a major turnoff for many of these consumers.

There’s a simple reason for this. Millennials spend a large portion of their day online, whether it’s for work, to communicate with friends, or to relax. As they navigate the internet, they’re bombarded with digital ads, which they’ve learned to tune out. 

If your content feels too much like an advertisement, it won’t resonate with this generation. Instead, focus on creating better content that provides value in another way. This could be content that’s deeply educational and informative or content that’s humorous and entertaining — whichever makes the most sense for your brand. 

3. Use Visual Content to Keep Readers Engaged

If your content is just a large wall of text, millennial readers will likely click away to something more visually appealing. Many in this age cohort absorb information more effectively when it’s communicated with photos, infographics, and videos in addition to text. Attention spans are getting shorter, and well-placed visuals communicate information faster. 

When developing your content, make sure to include visual components to bring it to life. Your millennial prospects will find your content more engaging, and your visuals will also contribute to your SEO performance. This is because Google’s algorithm values content that contains high-quality visuals. 

Additionally, your infographics and videos can do double duty as social media content. Millennials are known to spend plenty of time on social platforms like Instagram and YouTube. As a result, posting infographics and videos on these platforms is a great way to grab their attention and direct traffic to your website. 

4. Make Your Content Mobile-Friendly

Between work, home, family, and social commitments, busy millennials are perpetually on the go. That means many of them consume digital content on their smartphones and tablets rather than on a traditional desktop. Because of this, mobile-friendly content is a must-have for brands targeting this demographic. 

Luckily, most modern web development platforms make it easy to develop a mobile-friendly website. Choose a font that’s readable on both mobile and desktop platforms, and ensure that text is properly spaced on mobile devices. You’ll also need to make certain that any images you include are sized appropriately for mobile viewing. If your graphics take forever to load on their phones, you’ll lose this audience.

5. Work With Relevant Influencers

Since millennials already spend plenty of time on social media, meet them where they’re at with influencer partnerships. Influencers have already built a connection with their followers, so when they promote your products, it feels more authentic than a traditional ad. 

You can also have influencers contribute content directly to your website or social media channels. Millennial influencers are on the pulse of the latest trends, so they’ll be able to bring that expertise to your content. 

It’s important to choose your influencer partners wisely. Keep in mind that millennials are currently between the ages of 27 and 42, so opt for influencers in that age bracket to appeal to them. Furthermore, consider more than follower counts when selecting influencers to partner with. Micro-influencers can have just as much of an impact as major celebrity influencers when they’re relevant to your industry. 

6. Showcase Your Values

Millennials are a very socially conscious generation and will often research a brand’s ethos before making a purchasing decision. To help your content resonate with these consumers, you should be showcasing your brand values in your content. 

For example, if your organization is committed to protecting the environment, discuss your sustainability measures in your content. However, it’s important that you represent your company accurately — greenwashing won’t fly with this crowd. Don’t promote values or initiatives that you can’t back up, as this will likely put your audience off. 

7. Encourage and Implement Feedback

When compared with other generations, millennials are more likely to value a collaborative approach to engagement. They love providing feedback and sharing their opinions. 

Take advantage of this generational trait by posting content that’s a true conversation starter. Don’t be afraid to tackle trending, hot-button topics that are relevant to your brand. Be sure to give your readers an opportunity to share their thoughts with an open comments section. 

By encouraging feedback, you’re showing potential millennial customers that you value their opinion, which boosts your brand image. These feedback opportunities aren’t just for show either. Chances are, your readers will have some truly helpful advice to share. 

Final Thoughts on Creating Better Content for Millennials

As millennials reach middle age — and their prime earning years — they’ll likely continue to make up a sizable segment of your target audience. Prioritizing authenticity, collaboration, and general social consciousness is essential when creating better content.

The post 7 Tips for Creating Better Content That Resonates With Millennials appeared first on Millennial Marketing.

As their generation enters its middle-age period, Millennials aren’t just having an impact from the consumer side of the equation. The restless generation is beginning to accumulate wealth and enter positions of power, too. They currently own 13% of small businesses in the nation and are scooping up roles across the C-suite. As this transition of power takes place, a growing number of Millennial-led teams are changing industry norms.

Examples of a Millennial-led Team

Here are a few examples of how Millennial-led teams are shaking up their industries.

1. Boomn Is Redefining Marketing

Boomn is a growth marketing agency zeroed in on one area above all others: ecommerce. The Boomn team helps new direct-to-consumer businesses build customer acquisition strategies focused on high growth scale while still focusing on profit.

The young team at Boomn started as customer acquisition experts for all industries and business types. They grew up in the fledgling online marketplace and spent years, in the words of the brand, “trying, testing, and perfecting our growth strategies — and have results to prove just how damn effective they are.”

As Boomn grew, its team — including co-founder, COO, and YEC member Ryan O’Connell — realized that it needed to pivot. As a Millennial-led brand forged with energy and efficiency, they decided to focus their marketing specialty on businesses that sell products direct to consumer. They realized focusing on one niche allowed them to be highly specialized and become better partners for the brands they worked with.  

By moving into a model focused on helping direct-to-consumer companies grow and operate more efficiently, they’re able to service these brands at a much deeper level and efficiency than trying to be an everything for everyone solution. 

2. Bella+Canvas Is Breathing New Life Into Apparel

The apparel industry has an appalling track record. It’s estimated that as much as 10% of global CO2 emissions come from the fashion industry. Bella+Canvas is redefining what it means to be stylish and sustainable. It’s doing so with a Millennial-led team of C-suite women at the helm.

The brand stands for eco-friendly innovation. Its site sports the slogan “innovating today for a cleaner tomorrow,” and the commitment is easy to see across its business model. The brand’s EcoMax Tees are particularly impressive. The 100% recycled clothing is created from cotton scraps and polyester sourced from post-consumer PET bottles.

Bella+Canvas was originally founded in the 90s. While its first founders were from an older generation, in more recent years, its leadership has come to include a growing number of young, ambitious leaders. Megan Spire is one of these. She spent a decade working with Bella+Canvas, rising through the ranks to become the company’s Vice President of Sales. 

The fresh vision of these younger leaders is helping Bella+Canvas maintain its focus as the brand walks the line between cutting-edge fashion and sustainability. It’s an investment that isn’t easy for leaders to maintain. For Millennials, though, they have grown up steeped in the need to prioritize the environment, which makes keeping things on track easier, even in an industry known for its excessive waste.

3. Meta Remains a Disruptor After Nearly Two Decades

The presence of Facebook on a list like this would hardly catch anyone’s eye. After all, the social media site practically defined the concept of its industry in the first place.

But Facebook’s new parent company, Meta, is a Millennial-led team that refuses to rest on its laurels. Owner Mark Zuckerberg continues to seek disruption in the already disruption-prone tech industry. How so? Through his company’s investment in the metaverse.

Sparked by pandemic pressures and the growth of remote work, Meta has been focused on the potential of the metaverse for years now. The results have been up and down, but it remains a primary focus of the brand. Even at the time of this writing, Zuckerberg still sees everything, even AI’s recent breakthroughs, through the lens of the metaverse. 

While the speed and degree of adoption remain up in the air, there’s no doubt that Meta is shaking up its industry through its young leadership’s intense focus on blazing the trail for the future.

Millennials may still be coming into their own. But there’s no doubt that their transition into leadership is well underway. As that continues to play out, Millennial-led teams bring their own unique brand of leadership to the table, shaking up traditions, perspectives, and entire industries in the process.

The post 3 Millennial-Led Teams That Are Shaking Up Their Industries appeared first on Millennial Marketing.

Before you sign that blood contract, there are a few brand-development techniques you should try first. Some of them may take time to show results, but consistency and tenacity can go a long way. And, in a world of ubiquitous distraction, having patience is not some Sisyphean quest. You just have to maintain focus longer than the goldfish around you. So with that in mind, here are a few ways you can grow your brand and own your industry.

Focus on SEO

When it comes down to it, growing your business and standing out in your industry is a game. And, like it or not, there are people who play the game better than others, and those better players are the brands you know. These days, the game is all about search engine optimization, or SEO — a term you’ve likely heard before. At least that’s the game until AI achieves general intelligence, ascends to technodeism, and Skynet enslaves us all like the meat puppets we are. But that’s at least five more minutes away, so, for now, SEO it is.

Trying to understand SEO strategy may feel harder than cracking a bank vault with a Twizzler. But it really just comes down to a few simple, but crucial, components. SEO is the process of optimizing your website and content to promote views and backlinks. The more relevant and useful your content is, the more likely that search engines will be to recommend it.

There are countless blogs, guides, and videos online explaining how to optimize your content, but there’s something to say about hiring specialized growth marketing services. SEO strategy experts know the best tips and tricks for keyword research, and they practice implementing what they preach. However you choose to do it, focus on developing and executing a robust growth marketing strategy so your content is optimized for search engines.

Develop Your Brand’s Voice

Now, you could go gung-ho with SEO and use the same keywords, post schedule, and general marketing strategy as your competitors. But then you’d sound and look like them too. While you develop your strategy, don’t forget to make sure your brand’s voice remains unique. This can be a challenge, but the good news is that you have a secret weapon no one else does — you!

Developing your brand’s voice is all about deciding on a tone and sticking with it. Your brand could be inspiring, funny, poetic, raunchy, irreverent, inoffensive, or [insert witty adjective here], as long as it’s consistent. Studies show 46% of US consumers would rather buy from a brand they trust, and consistency of voice often contributes to trustworthiness.

As with most parts of life, trust isn’t something you just get right away — it’s something you earn. To some degree, your brand’s voice is a reflection of your own, so you need to find a confident part of yourself you want to build on. It’s also important to make sure you’re speaking to your audience. Taking a pompous, superficial tone isn’t going to fly with young activists, while a vulgar approach wouldn’t be the most appropriate when addressing most grandparents.

Be Confident

Good ol’ Teddy Rosevelt once said, “Comparison is the thief of joy,” and he was a wise man. But forget that for a minute and take some time to be miserable and compare your brand’s voice to others out there. While you certainly do want to sound unique, there’s one trait your brand’s voice should always have, and that’s confidence. Leaders and businesses that express themselves confidently are often seen as more trustworthy and credible. And some of the most recognizable brands also have the most consistently confident voices out there.

Look at prominent brands that own their industry for example. McDonald’s slogan isn’t “I hope you like it.” It’s “I’m lovin’ it.” Nike’s isn’t “Try on our shoes.” It’s “Just do it.” BMW’s isn’t “A nice looking car similar to other nice looking cars.” It’s “The ultimate driving machine.” Notice how all these slogans project an unwavering and unabashed sense of confidence. Whether or not you have a slogan, experiment with different writing to see how you can project authority through your brand’s voice.

Patience Is a Virtue

It’s no secret that building a brand from scratch is a challenging undertaking. It’s something that takes time, effort, and a serious amount of dedication. But it’s also something that’s quite possible to do, and can pay off in spades in the long run.

Developing your brand and learning how to own your industry is all about standing out from the crowd. You can do that by focusing on your growth marketing, developing a confident brand voice, and being consistent. Experiment with different brand development strategies, find which works best for you, and stick with it.

The post How to Own Your Industry as a Millennial appeared first on Millennial Marketing.

On the one hand, this has given smaller businesses unfettered access to audiences they couldn’t reach before, like millennials. On the other hand, the sheer size and scope of modern marketing have made it an overwhelming proposition — especially for a small marketing team. 

Three Ways to Make Your Small Marketing Team Efficient

Figuring out what tools to use, choosing the right channels, and optimizing things like data and content are all challenges that small marketing teams grapple with daily. If your team is struggling to keep up or has no idea where to even start, there are a few essential ways to make your small team more efficient.

1. Consolidate Your Marketing Tech Stack

One of the first steps to maintaining efficiency is to restrict your marketing tools. With so many options out there, it’s easy to try to use everything with any kind of potential (and there are a lot of those kinds of tools out there these days).

The truth is, though, if you try to do that, you’ll end up overextending yourself and watering down your results across the board. Social media is a perfect example of this concept in action, especially when trying to reach a millennial audience. 

Platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, and TikTok have incredible reach and provide direct access to millennials. You can also utilize each platform differently, tapping into the power of paid ads, influencers, user-generated content, and so on. 

What many marketers fail to realize is that this buffet of options doesn’t mean every single one is the right fit for you. Instead, marketers should focus their efforts on the platforms that their millennial target audiences are most likely to use. 

Even then, don’t resort to generic marketing. Tailor each campaign to the way your millennial target audience utilizes the platform. If your millennial audience spends a lot of time on TikTok, develop a paid and organic presence on that network specifically. Building custom content for this platform can result in explosive reach if it’s done well. Or maybe your audience of millennials turns to Facebook for an online community. In that case, engage and interact with your followers as much as possible. Soon they’ll become brand ambassadors on their own Facebook pages. If your audience follows a lot of celebrities, build out an influencer program.  

Make sure to take the same approach with all of your marketing tools, channels, and associated activities. Are you using each tool because it’s the best option to achieve a specific KPI? Or is it just cluttering up your tech stack with inefficient or unused applications? If it’s the latter, get rid of it and focus only on what’s working.

2. Automate What You Can

For a lot of marketers, automation seems obvious. For smaller teams, however, it’s not just convenient – it’s imperative. The number of automated tools available is growing every day, and many of them offer valuable services to improve efficiency.

Take email marketing as an example. Tech providers like Constant Contact and Mailchimp offer multiple automation options. You can automate a sales funnel, onboarding sequences, and abandoned cart emails. This reduces the amount of time a marketing team needs to invest in their day-to-day emailing activity.

Another area ripe for improvement is social media. The complex, ever-growing world of social media marketing can make it hard for a smaller marketing team to manage. Also, the variation in platforms, the relentless need for new content, and the constant need to babysit responses are major headaches for marketers. 

Fortunately, you can use things like scheduled posts and recycled content to reduce the time and effort required to run social media campaigns. Tools like Canva generate content in multiple formats for different platforms at the same time.

Automation is an affordable and accessible way for smaller marketing teams to improve their efficiency in multiple areas of marketing. It’s well worth a small team’s time and effort to explore ways to automate their current or future marketing efforts.

3. Outsource (at Least Some of) Your Marketing Needs

Sometimes when a small marketing team is overwhelmed, the best option is to bring in outside help. Outsourcing is a common option in the modern business world. It’s also more accessible than ever, thanks to the internet and the rise of remote work.

As is often the case with marketing, there are multiple options to choose from when outsourcing. You want to consider each carefully to find the one that fits your team’s current needs.

For instance, if you’re struggling with the grunt work, you might want to contract a freelance writer or graphic designer to help with content creation. If your larger strategy is the issue, you may want to recruit a fractional CMO. These are experienced C-suite professionals that split their time between multiple small and medium-sized businesses that can’t afford a full-time CMO. 

Another option is to outsource to an agency. This often comes with a larger support system. For instance, outsourced CMO Hawke Media offers more than just a 10,000-foot view focused on strategizing. The company has a range of à la carte services, including email, paid search, social media, affiliate marketing, and SEO. Agencies like these allow you to outsource select items that your team is struggling to manage.

Outsourcing, automation, and consolidation. These are three key areas that small marketing teams should keep in mind when trying to maintain efficiency. If you can keep your tech stack clean, automate wherever possible, and recruit third-party help when needed, you can create a lean, mean marketing machine that can take your company to the next level.

Image credit: Ivan Samkov; Pexels

The post How to Make Your Small Marketing Team More Efficient appeared first on Millennial Marketing.

On the one hand, customers want informed and personalized experiences tailored to their interests and needs. On the other hand, they want to protect their information and keep their identities secure as they navigate the increasingly complex 21st-century marketplace.

Business leaders must pay attention to this apparent dichotomy if they want to provide effective customer experiences moving forward. Let’s take a look at the two sides of the issue and consider ways to gather data to inform experiences without ticking customers off in the process.

The Need for Personalization

In the information age, consumers want personalized experiences.

Nowhere is this more apparent than with younger, tech-savvy generations. For instance, SmarterHQ reports that 70% of millennials get frustrated when brands send them irrelevant emails. This is something that happens often with antiquated, un-personalized marketing initiatives. As a counterpoint, when the average millennial receives a personalized message from a company, it increases brand loyalty by as much as 28%.

The younger your target audience, the more the need for personalization intensifies. When asked, 81% of Gen Zers replied that they want personalized ads. The trend toward individualized messages and personalized promotions isn’t just possible in this data-first era. It’s quickly becoming a requirement for success.

And yet, that’s only half of the story.

The Issue of Safety and Privacy as It Relates to Personalization

We may live in an information age, but consumers have made it clear that they don’t think data should be universally available. On the contrary, McKinsey reports that consumers are particularly unwilling to share data when it comes to transactions that they consider less important. Pew Research adds that 79% of adults report that they are “very or somewhat concerned about how companies are using the data they collect about them.”

The mistrust surrounding the exchange of personal information is well-warranted. Larger data breaches have become par for the course in recent years, with many coming through large corporations that harvested customer data for years. In addition, the statistics surrounding cybercrimes like identity theft continue to skyrocket.

This erodes trust and prompts many consumers to safeguard their information whenever possible (even if they clamor for personalized experiences in the next breath). The question is, how can companies safely navigate this two-edged sword of personalization and privacy?

Building a Respectful Strategy to Personalize Customer Experiences

If brands want to attract customers, they must find ways to personalize their interactions with their target audience. At the same time, data security is a factor that they need to both prioritize and communicate to customers. 

On the surface, this creates a dilemma. For many business leaders, it appears that the only choice is to address one item at the expense of the other. But the truth is, it’s still possible to create a safe and respectful customer experience that is also personalized. However, it requires a thoughtful and strategic approach.

This starts with the collection of the right kind of data.

Gathering Customer Data the Right Way

For a long time, third-party cookies have been one of the key elements eroding customer trust in data collection. In a nutshell, cookies collect customer data while someone is on a website. Third-party cookies consist of entities other than a website owner that are collecting and repurposing data without the consent of a website visitor. 

Third-party cookies are currently being phased out, which is a huge win for consumer privacy. However, it also means companies must start to proactively collect customer data if they want to keep their interactions personalized. This direct and above-board gathering of information is referred to as first-party data, and there are several ways to collect it, including:

• Surveys
• Customer accounts
• Branded mobile apps
• Text messages
• Customer service interactions
• Customer relationship management (CRM) software

These are all common ways businesses can go straight to their customers to ask for their information. While this gathers data without ticking off consumers, though, it’s only part of the solution.

Finding the Tools to Optimize That Hard-Earned Information

As businesses collect first-party data from their customers in an honest and up-front manner, they must find the tools to optimize that information. One example of this is Retention.com. 

The brand creates retention marketing software solutions that utilize clean, safe customer data to personalize business interactions. For instance, if a customer leaves a cart without checking out, the personalized marketing solution can send an abandoned cart message to improve what the company refers to as “abandonment revenue.” The software helps in similar ways with things like email and SMS, too.

Between clean collection and optimized utilization of first-party data, businesses can still create personalized experiences for their customers without compromising their privacy. This is good news for any organization looking for ways to continue to thrive in an information-heavy, tech-driven era where fickle consumer expectations continue to refine how businesses and their marketing departments operate.

Image credit: Anete Lusina; Pexels

The post Privacy and Personalization: How to Walk the Line When Marketing to Millennials appeared first on Millennial Marketing.