Millennials, Generation Y, Echo Boomers, call us whatever you want. By us I mean anyone born in the mid-1980’s to the early 1990’s. Our generation is often viewed as the tech-savvy kids, as we grew up using computers in school and had smartphones introduced to us as teenagers (there’s a scary thought). Some negative views on Millennials are that we rely too much on technology and don’t have that right values. Although, stereotyping this diverse of a group seems foolish it is true in some respects.
This generation is the most vital to marketers all over the world representing different brands and companies but also tends to be the hardest to capture. Millennials are typically not brand loyal because they grew up searching the web for everything they need or searching YouTube to do it themselves. Even if they purchase your product and love it, chances are they will still look at other brands on their next purchase. That isn’t even the worst part for businesses. The worst is that they could buy your product, love it, and then forget all about it within a day. Millennials’ attention span has been proven by countless studies to be lower than any generation before it. Thanks technology!
Making your message cut through the clutter is a typical strategy for marketers to reach Generation Y, but is it the right one? Getting your message through the clutter is a start but the best way of reaching this elusive group is to not even be clutter. We have learned to decipher through advertisements because of the amount we are exposed to. Your message shouldn’t be selling something, it should be providing a solution to our problems or inconveniences.
One of my best marketing professors always told our class, “nobody wants to be sold, but everyone wants to buy.” It seems trivial and contradicting but if you think about yourself as a buyer it makes perfect sense. When you make a purchase you don’t want to think it was because of an ad you saw, but rather that you found a solution and at an unbelievable price. If your company understands that, then you are doing it the right way. Provide a solution for us Millennials or let Maudience do what we do best and convert them for you. There are a lot of Iowa advertising agencies, but make sure you choose one that understands how to appeal to evolving markets.
