How to Sell to Millennials: 8 Essentials You Should Know

Does Selling to Millennials Require Specific Techniques?

It’s not so simple to know precisely how to sell to millennials. Although they’re on social media and their phones regularly, millennials have become so used to seeing advertisements and marketing and developed a resistance to it.

The key to marketing to millennials is to use the right tactics to stand out and be noticed by them. Also, it is not about what you sell but how to sell to millennials that have become a whole lot essential when it comes to selling to them.

If you’re wondering why you haven’t been able to connect with millennials, well, here are some important factors about how to sell to millennials:

1) Mobile Marketing

If you’ve been in a clothing store or a restaurant with a vast millennial audience, you may have seen the ability to sign up via text for a coupon right then and there.

This is a lead magnet to get millennials to sign up for text message alerts. This lets businesses alert the customer of any sales, deals, or events as they please.

Mobile marketing has been around for a few years, but it is expanding now that smartphones have become a necessity in a millennial’s life. How can you use mobile marketing in your business?

Simple. If you have a physical location, you can use a variation of the lead magnet we mentioned above. If you are an online business, you can host a webinar, an online sale, or event and prompt the user to sign up for alerts via text message.

Text message marketing allows you to send less content, which means you even save time in your marketing. It works better than email marketing when it comes to how to sell to millennials. This is because they are used to and have less patience for “junk” and “spam” email than older generations.

2) Authentic Marketing

Millennials don’t notice bold numbers, action words, or the other typical features of traditional marketing. What they do see is authentic marketing, which includes storytelling and behind the scenes being shared. Try sharing stories of your employees, or the way your business is contributing to your community and world.

Creating a long-form post with an authentic, emotion triggering video that you can advertise and boost on Social Media is a highly effective way to go viral and be noticed by millennials.

They aren’t just going to go through it, but also participate and share the content with their buddies if they deem it to be effective in some way.

3) Video Marketing

That being said, video is a necessity when it comes to marketing to millennials. If you don’t believe that, look at the growth of apps like Vine and Periscope. These platforms grew at unheard of rates because they offered authentic video that was new in the world of marketing.

Marketers have had luck using video on these apps as well as places like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and their websites. Videos are more likely to be seen, remembered, and shared in comparison to any other way of sharing content. Remember to keep them short and with a purpose.

4) Focus On Your Language

Millennials are the most diverse and quickest changing demographics that we have seen. Their language is critical to grab their attention and hit their emotions the right way.

However, using a word that is out of style (which may only be a few weeks) can make you seem late to the party and out of the loop. You should have someone on your team who researches the latest trends for millennials. You want to see what actual millennials are talking about and how they’re saying it, not how other companies picture it.

Often, by the time you copy what another company is doing for language, you’re too late. The one primary key when it comes to how to sell to millennials is unique and fresh with your sales pitch.

5) Utilize the People Who Already Have Their Attention

Millennials are hardcore fans. Some people already have their attention that you can utilize by bringing them onto your team as a sponsor or similar arrangement. When you do this, the sponsor will advertise that they use your product and help you skip the getting noticed part of marketing.

Finding popular users on social media and blogs is a great way to find sponsors for your brand. Since this, a widespread practice, don’t be surprised that it does come with a price. Be sure to ask for numbers on the success their past sponsorships have received. Influencer marketing is already the face of modern marketing.

The key points of marketing to millennials are video, authenticity, and language. If you focus on these three areas, your marketing will be successful. What unique tactics have you tried when marketing to a specific demographic?

6) Determining The Most Used Medium

Millennials face no problems in changing with time. If one of the texting apps becomes less popular, they’ll switch to another. They are immensely adaptive to change and are embracing it with extreme vigor.

Therefore, to sell to millennials, you will have to change the medium with time. For instance, text messaging has pretty much gone off the charts in recent years and is not as effective as it used to be.

Especially when it comes to the question of how to sell to millennials, you will have to be adaptive and switch to apps like Whatsapp and Snapchat for your marketing and advertising.

The same goes for the social media platforms they use. The popularity of Facebook has significantly faded, and Instagram is becoming a lot more popular. Hence, it would be in vain if you keep on spending on marketing and advertising on Facebook instead of switching to other social media platforms that are gaining popularity.

7) The Social Responsibility Factor

Millennials are by far the most aware of the generations we have seen in decades. They have the facilities to know what’s going on in the world and what are the burning issues. It is, hence, not only wise but necessary to make sure you are on the right side of issues that affect them.

For instance, the significant issues of the time like climate change or the treatment of women at workplaces are not something they ignore. Millennials will not only avoid buying from companies that are on the wrong side of these issues but will go out of their way to make it clear on social media platforms like Twitter.

Hence, it becomes immensely important to appear as a brand that not only embraces positive social change, but itself takes such measures. Never has been a generation so socially active than millennials. Brands need to be aware of this fact to ensure they’re not registered in their wrong books.

8) Meaningful And Transparent Advertising

The days of lofty advertisement are all but gone. The companies that use traditional ad commercials riddled with fallacies are not going to appeal to the millennials.

This is because the millennials expect a lot more wit and guile from the brands and won’t just trust everything. They’re skeptical about lofty claims and will waste no time downplaying advertisements with misleading claims and even mock them.

Hence, when you think of how to sell to millennials, chuck out the over-the-top ad commercials of the old times.

Also, an advertisement that is more about the state of things in the real world is gaining more popularity today. This is because millennials hardly ever buy into the lofty claims of brands, which was the case a decade ago. They either get impressed, or they get frustrated.

This extreme reaction of love or hate is the signature attitude of millennials, and brands need to be very careful regarding it. Selling to millennials isn’t just about catching their eye but intriguing them.

How To Sell To Millennials – More Than Just Consumers

Last but not least, millennials don’t like to be reduced to mere consumers. It may sound strange but it is true. If you’re pitching something to them, you’ve to make them feel in control of not just their choices but much more.

Make them believe that by buying your product or service, they aren’t just choosing the correct option but contributing in some way to a better world. It can be pitching an eco-friendly solution to their needs or related in some way to patriotism, which is the most marketable emotion today.

In short, you have to make them feel valuable by merely buying what you’re selling. Being a part of something above themselves is the millennial way of doing things. And they want to carry on this habit as consumers.

It makes them feel good and will make your sales chart rise if you let them on a pedestal higher than mere consumers. This is the lesser-known answer to the question of how to sell to millennials.