Millennial Marketing 101 - Our First Podcast!

Want to sell more shit to millennials? Well, you’ve got to understand them first.

If you didn't know already, we drop a weekly podcast full of marketing theory and a generous helping of banter. If you're the least bit curious about marketing and advertising, we think 'Sell More Sh*t To Millennials' will be right up your alley. You can listen and subscribe HERE.

To accompany each podcast, we'll be releasing these handy partner articles to collect the important bits and handy links we discuss. So here we are - numero uno!

In our first podcast we discuss how Millennials are defined and the tools that we use to profile buyers for brands. At The Raiders we deal in connecting brands with audiences, quite often primarily made up of Gen Y – we are a youth marketing agency after all. This work has enabled us to develop methodologies to profile and market to buyers even if they are from a differing generation

We’ve said it time and time again, but Millennials are a diverse, fickle audience. They’re cynical, self-aware and knowledgeable. Which means if you’re going to open up a line of communication, it has to go two ways, and it has to speak to Gen Y on their level. If you can do that, you can do it with pretty much anyone!

We’ve listed the biggest takeaways from Episode 1 of our podcast below:

Buyer Personas Are A Lifesaver

The first thing we always urge our clients to do, is complete a buyer persona analysis. This way you get a better idea of their desires, their motivations and what makes them tick. With this available you can start to build campaigns that push the right buttons and engage your audience fluently and honestly. 

The tool we recommend to do this? - http://www.makemypersona.com/

This will really help accelerate your audience profiling and ensure everyone in your business can understand the traits that make up your ideal customer, as well as all the other buyer types your brand may attract.

Inbound Marketing is All The Rage

Consumers have so much access to information these days that advertisers can no longer simply put out information and have people take it at face value. People are now fact-checking, comparing and sharing things instantaneously.

They also expect to be able to delve further into marketing communication then ever before – that’s why their needs to be two-way communication between brands and consumers. Inbound marketing methodology has gained prominence because it offers value to both the consumer and the business at all stages of the buying process. Usually visualised as a funnel, inbound marketing begins with customers identifying a personal need (sometimes prompted by the business itself) and searching for a solution. Rather than the power being in the hands of advertisers, consumers are now the first-engagers. They seek out businesses, provide their details or engage in communication (via social, email, phone) and essentially give permission to be marketed to.

Because they want to learn more, they want to find a solution and they have determined a set of businesses (or a single business) that they believe will help them. The outbound marketing efforts from other companies just becomes white noise.

So the value of inbound is that the prospective customer gets value in the form of information, and possibly tools to help them make their purchase decision or solve their need. The business gains valuable, constantly-updating information on their buyer to better serve them more pertinent information and tailor their marketing.

Enhance the Purchase Process, Don’t Interrupt It:

Once you know your buyers, and you’ve got them travelling down the funnel you’ll want to ensure that the information-seeking or purchase process is as intuitive as possible. You’ll want to utilise what you know about your customers to enhance their experience. For instance, if a prospective customer is filling out an application form online and you’ve noted that your buyers prefer communication via email or a messenger app, it’s best to NOT have an agent call them mid-completion to discuss the information they’ve already provided and take over from the digital arm. Look to utilise a virtual chat assistant (a bot even) as an option for the user.

Of course, if there is a lot of information to wade through for the consumer, it might be best to have the option for customer provide their details for a quick call back to complete application. That way you’re enhancing the experience, not double-handling and approaching your buyer on their level.

Overall, we can’t say enough about how important it is to constantly check in with your customers, review your data and investing time (and money, too) into learning how your potential audience communicates across differing channels.

As Dom points out, “it’s easy to think you know your audience but data speaks for itself!”

Don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe to the ‘Sell More Sh*t to Millennials” podcast on iTunes. We bring you the freshest beers, banter and marketing info every week!