Digital Marketing in 2020: How to reach and attract millennials to your brand

Posted by Anushka Agarwal

The extent and reach of digital marketing are beyond comparison. For any marketer, who has tasted the salt and sugar of marketing knows a brand’s influence that is digitally praised and honored by the masses. For businesses around the world; if you want to consolidate, strengthen and build an empire; you need to extract through the ripe strategies and tactics of Digital Marketing. As for the future, it won’t be wrong to postulate, digital marketing is going to take giant strides in the coming year, now that more and more brands and consumers are being educated about it.

With the e-commerce giant; Amazon, turning their heads towards the much-lured marketplace establishment for the consumers and the search engine leader; Google, testing algorithms and approaches for a shopping tab to let consumers have a splendid purchasing experience; digital advertising and marketing is becoming the focal point of modern age. The traditional forms of marketing are suffering ruthlessly through the popularity of digital media verticals including podcasts.

As entailed by a survey conducted by ET, digital advertising will reach approximately 19,000 crores by 2020 with a CAGR growth margin of 32percent. Also, the digital media spend will go up to 24percent by 2020, from its erstwhile rate of 15percent. As far as the growth rate of other shareable media content is concerned; video, display, and the search will achieve a humongous increase by 38percent, 36percent, and 25percent. Podcasts, which are emerging as another profound digital marketing weapon will lead out a revolution for brands in a bid to reach new digital audiences. Brands nowadays are all about ‘go digital’ action-plan, trying to capture the essence of the market to reach the audiences effectively.

The Importance of Targeting the Millennial Audience for better Digital Presence

Millennials, comprise the pilot generation who have experienced the taste of the digital age and are born and brought up in a social media world. This makes them the key targets for any digital marketing campaign. For any digital marketer, capturing the sight of the millennial audience is like a golden goose. Considering the statistics, more than 25% of the population in America comprises of the millennial crowd with an annual spending power of over $600 billion. By 2020, the annual spending power is likely to reach $1.4 trillion which will account for 30% of the retail sales.

With so much influence being laid by the millennials on the global market segment, brands and companies must now focus on tactics and strategies especially devoted to such audiences. Moreover, the millennial crowd is all about finding authentic and trustworthy resources which, in turn, cannot be provided by the traditional forms of marketing like print ads and TV commercials. Millennials are people who aren’t naïve, but they are tech-savvy and hypersensitive to the internet, social media and digital advertising. As a business owner, you cannot target them with flashy ads or marketing gimmicks, but with convincing and credible products and services. As for brands, digital marketing lets them exercise the corporate social responsibilities towards the customers and said wider communities.

Digital marketing is, therefore, a road that brands are obligated to take for better awareness, customer acquisition and retention, to mold the campaigns following the characteristics, demographics, purchase decisions, digital trends and the engagement tendencies of the promising consumers.

The Offbeat ways to Engage Millennials through Digital Marketing Strategies

In case brands are still wondering how to reach those millennials, they need to focus their undivided attention in the following different ways:

1. Social Media Platforms are the Topmost Priority: There is a reason why millennials are referred to as the ‘digital generation’ of the ‘modern age crowd’. They are undoubtedly, the most tech-savvy people on Earth and are the biggest trends in the digital world especially when the talk is concerned with social media platforms. For brands, they need to embrace all the social media platforms like Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram in compilation with their top features like stories, live sessions, and other shareable content. If a brands’ target market is on these platforms and they are not, it leads to them losing a lot of conversions, brand exposure, lead generation, and sales.

2. Invite them to be a part of your Culture and Community: consumers aspire to be a part of brands that has their community. Any brand which wants to script their success story with the young market, have to make them a part of the community. Brands need to build a community that not only engages such diverse crowd on an online platform but an offline one too. With a community featuring such influential millennials will mean an offer more than just products and services, aiding in brands building a long-term relationship with them.

3. Quality Content is the Key: creating quality content is one of the tactics followed in social media marketing, although, brands can attract millennials through it. For a brand, they need to have clearly defined procedures and strategies for content marketing and social media marketing to be able to relate to the Gen Y market. If millennials can’t relate with the content; that can create a negative image for the brand. Since the millennials belong to a niche demographic of the population, brands need to create customized and applauding content for them.

4. Contact with the Noteworthy Influencers: influencers hold infinite power in digital marketing arenas and are of utmost importance for the brands. They create quality content, drive traffic to the website, help in lead conversions, and build fruitful relationships and promote engagement. Collaborating with influencers that have a marked reflection on the millennial crowd is one-way brands that can derive customer engagement and sales. Gen Y will trust anything that an influencer says, in turn, leading to brand advertising. In large part, if a notable and credible influencer talks about brands’ products and provides information about it, their followers are more likely to take the lead.

5. Video Content is an Effective Catalyst: for brands that offer too much of sales-related content, millennials are likely to ignore it. Videos, on the other hand, are an amazing way for brands to interact with their customers. Millennials love video content, something that doesn’t come across as an advertisement is engaging and fun to watch. For the same reason, 41percent of the millennial crowd still accesses Facebook for such video content. For brands trying to communicate better with their customers, videos are an effective way to do so.

6. Consistent Services and Timing: The right time is what makes the biggest impact on businesses. When coding your digital marketing strategy, brands need to provide timely and relevant information. For instance, in the digital age, things like free shipping, 30-day return policy, live tracking, 24/7 customer service, and quality are what matters. With efficient and modern approach followed by the call centres in India, such content can be strategically planned to capture the best in the market and drive leads to conversions, while escalating customer satisfaction levels.

7. Use Loyalty Programs: According to a survey, more than 77percent of millennials prefer participating in contests and loyalty programs. Also, 73percent of smartphone users like to interact with brands for various loyalty programs. The success stories of Chipotle, Starbucks, and Boloco are all about interacting with the customers and rewarding them for their loyalty towards the brand. Millennials do not mind a few reward coins and prizes when it comes with a long affair with the brand. This offers to be an effective way of reaching out to these millennials who know what such loyalty programs mean.

To Sum Up

Millennials, in today’s digital market, hold boundless purchasing power which is what brands want to target. This can be comprehended to financial stability and the up-to-date knowledge of the internet and related things. For brands, thinking of building an effective relationship with this demographic, needs to understand them as individuals. The knowledge of what the millennial population likes, dislikes, finds fascinating, can go for, and surely will add to their wardrobe is important.

Millennials are not difficult people, but they are just smart, witty and make informed decisions. Instead of tricking them, brands should focus on developing and creating products and services that can catch their eye. Brands need to be simple but classy at the same time. By following subtle yet strategic tactics, brands can influence purchase decisions and create value for their product in the market. These strategies will help brands to understand the millennial mind in a better way.

Tags: Digital Marketing in 2020 Digital Marketing Trends Call Centres in India Product and Promotion Customer Services