Marketing to Millennials: Only 6% Trust Online Advertising

Do you know how to connect with the Millennial Generation?  Does your Marketing to Women include Marketing to Millennial Women?

Marketing to millennials is not about the cleverness of an ad or even it’s placement. Millennials are a different generation of consumer.  They are projected to spend $10 trillion in their lifetimes and are the first to grow up in a truly digital age. There are an estimated 79 million millennials in the US versus a mere 48 million Gen Xers. Their purchasing power is second only to boomers.  Millennials are most often defined as those born between 1980 and 2000.

Millennials Not in Love with Advertising

This is not the Pepsi Generation.  This young generation doesn’t define itself through advertising.  They like to discover things for themselves.  Most importantly, they are a generation truly wary of advertising.  A recent study from SocialChorus shows that only 6% of millennials find online advertising to be credible.  They are also not excited about Facebook’s attempt to incorporate advertising into timelines;  67 percent of them never click on sponsored stories.

In order to connect with a millennial, you need to best understand how they make decisions.  Studies showed that 95% of millennials find their friends to be the most credible source on a product, followed by their parents and online experts.  Furthermore, 98% of millennials are more likely to engage with a friend’s post than a brand’s post on a social media site.

Engaging millennials in the arenas of their life is crucial in order to have them listen to and actually hear your message.  Using mobile content, but not mobile advertising is an effective way of connecting with this generation.  Whether it is having them create their own content, follow a hashtag, or play a game, interactive marketing is an effective way to connect them with your product or message.

Marketing has to work in concert with their consumer experience.

Don’t say you have the world’s best pool at your resort if it is 25 years old but has a rocking bar scene.  Tell the truth that can be substantiated by peer groups.  The time of over promise is over because peer reviews like TripAdvisor will tell the whole truth of an experience.  And that is true with almost every brand in existence.  I love an article from Forbes  that states:  To Be Great, Understate.

What are some brands that are successful with marketing to this group?  Kia, Toms and Target are all good examples.  Kia has their music and their sense of fun.  Toms relates to their need for social responsibility.  And Target has a little fun play on fashion – using name designers like Phillip Lim to make affordable fashion which matches their pocketbook.

However, in order for your strategy to be truly successful, your brand and product must be one worth talking about.  While a great quality product or service is important, having a socially responsible company is equally as important to this generation.  To truly connect, meet them where they are, have them interact and listen, and be a company worth listening to.