Millennial Marketing
I recently read an article from an industry publication about Millennial Marketing and why it’s time to shift focus from the Baby Boomers onto the Millennials. Are you wondering who exactly are these Millennials and why should we start marketing towards them? Millennials are teens to under-30 adults, they’re 70-plus million strong and by 2015 they’ll be spending $2.45 trillion annually.
The two most important things to remember when selling promotional products to the Millennial Generation-the product should have an “it” factor and it has to be free.
Do a promotion with a product that’s already a popular within this age group because chances are everyone wants one, not yet everyone has one, and even if you do (already have one) you’ll take another. A great example- Wayfarer shades (note: the original Wayfarer has been made by Ray-Ban since 1952 and can run you over $100 a pair.) Buy the promotional wayfarers for under $5 and Millennials will be flocking to you. I recently had a conversation with a peer who had gotten sunglasses branded with the Peroni (beer) logo that she loved. Someone took her pair and she has been dying to find another pair. Hmm that sounds like a successful promotion to me!
You can expect that Millennials will want whatever your promo is- for FREE. Listen, you want them to buy your products, get into your brand then they need some kind of incentive and their favorite kinds are the free ones. Case in point- my freshman year of college outside of my dorm there was a credit card company trying to get students to sign up for accounts and guess what they were enticing us with-the infamous, “COLLEGE” t-shirt from ‘Animal House’. Trust me; you would have thought they were handing out $100 bills with the crowds of kids. The front of the t-shirts had “COLLEGE,” the back had the credit card company’s logo. Simple enough but everyone wanted a shirt-which you weren’t getting without signing up for a credit card.
Millennials are also huge technology and social media users. Who doesn’t have a Facebook account in this generation? Very few. Facebook was started by and made popular by: college age students (aka Millennials). Step-up your social media usage if you want to market to this group. They’re on Facebook and Twitter- so if your company doesn’t have accounts on social media sites, I suggest you sign up.
What’s the best way to learn how to effectively market and advertise to millennials…work with companies like Quintain Marketing who employ a few of them!