5 Ways To Get Millennials Hooked to Your Channel!

Millennials are the gold mine for marketers. Millennials are the people born between 1981 and 1996 and are adults now. As working professionals, they have the purchasing power and make up a major portion of the consumer market influenced by digital marketing.  

A survey by GlobalWebIndex (GWI) revealed that an average teen aged 16 to 20 years spends 3 hours 38 minutes a day on their phone, around 50 minutes more than the global average. 

Source: foxnews

All eyes on the prize - Millennials 

Digital marketers have a hard time getting the attention of millennials. They are mature enough not to fall for click baits and irrelevant e-mailers that end up in spam. Digital marketing strategists have to face challenges that are completely new to marketing like the YouTube ad blocker. 

 "Millennials have developed the necessary resistance against the snooping nature of digital marketing."

What strategies should marketers and professionals pursuing a digital marketing course come up with to attract millennials? Is it possible to sound authentic and make an impression at the first go? What does it take to grab the fluttering attention of a millennial? Let’s find out. 

5 digital marketing strategies to get millennials hooked

1. Your strategies should cater to instant gratification

Have you ever thought how with just one thumb gesture you can browse through entire Facebook? The social media is governed by mobile phone users and instant gratification is an important factor. Auto playing videos have replaced text content. Voice commands have taken over typing. 

Your digital strategy needs to be tuned to cater to the age of instant gratification, or else you run the risk of your content being overlooked. Just look at how social media has evolved. Instagram, Facebook, and even WhatsApp have all moved towards posts which come with a deadline to consume the content, such as Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp Stories, all taking a hint from the very foundation of Snapchat – that is thriving on the fear of missing out (FOMO) which scares millennials to their wits! 

Exploit the potential of visual mediums to deliver instant gratification to your digital consumers. Figure out how you can use FOMO to your benefit and have your audience keep coming back for more. 

Source: quickmarketing

2. Be authentic when it comes to your brand voice

Almost every company has an active social media presence today. However, only a few manage to turn it into an authentic channel to communicate with their customers. 

Source: digitalfire 

A key digital strategy is to give the power of expression to your customers by encouraging them to review, share and take up the role of becoming authentic brand ambassadors. It is important to cater to the comments on your social media accounts with a personal touch. Be organic and refrain from using a language that sounds like an ad banner headline. Millennials value authenticity the most and what better way to show your genuineness than through social proof?

Source: Instagram

3. Dare to be different

Can a B2B brand have a valuable presence on Instagram? Is LinkedIn a platform only for professional networking? With clutter on prominent social media platforms, digital strategies must experiment with the trends and dare to be different. 

Hollywood actor Will Smith’s Instagram page is currently a rage on the internet. His digital marketing strategy for brand ‘Will Smith’ is simple and honest to the core. Though Will joined Instagram recently, he has over eight million followers. 

The actor is an example of being gutsy and experimental when it comes to digital marketing. His recent parody of his son Jaden’s new song got Jaden more publicity (over 1,538,893 likes) than that of a mid-sized company promoting itself on social media. 

4. Ride the viral wave 

Viral videos on social media can generate huge amounts of hits in a short burst of time. But getting a good viral video out is easier said than done. That does not mean you cannot take advantage of a viral phenomenon on social media and use it as a digital marketing strategy.  

Source: arre 

A recent example was the ‘Kiki Challenge’ that grabbed the attention of the entire internet! Interestingly, many professional dancers used the idea and released their own version of the Kiki Challenge on social media to attract the audience to their page and cash in on the infectious trend. 

5. Humanize your brand

“Public is more interested in personalities than in corporations”

The great ad guru David Ogilvy put it in words a long time ago, but every word of this quote holds true when put in perspective today. Brands should exploit digital mediums like social media and content marketing to humanize their brand and showcase the people who make their brand. 

Source: statista

Elon Musk, the prominent face of futuristic companies like Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink is worshipped by millennials who follow him on Twitter and Facebook and draw inspiration from his every post. To earn the loyalty of millennials, you need to show your real face in the virtual world. 

A tough nut to crack 

With the Facebook-savvy parents and grandparents giving a noticeable competition from one side, millennials remain to be the biggest and one of the trickiest consumers of digital media. Can you think of a unique strategy to tap millennials effectively? If yes, then you’re all set for the challenge! If not, take up a Manipal ProLearn’s digital marketing training to get started. 

Written By

Aditi Bhat