How to Reach Millennials in the Era of Endless Consumer Choice
Fifty, twenty, even ten years ago, behemoth advertising agencies created brands. The goal of a brand was to sell the brand's product.
In 2020, what it takes to build a successful brand targeting Millennials has changed, and extends beyond selling the product.
The internet increased consumer expectations.
Blame it on the internet. It spurred e-commerce businesses because it was suddenly easy to spin up a new company, find customers who shared your interests, and sell to them. The customers were always there. The internet made it easier to find them. The internet made it easy to expose a brand and that enabled choice beyond comprehension. Now Millennial consumers demand more from brands than ever before. Essentially, the internet is responsible for shifting the creation of expectations from the brand conglomerates to the consumers.
Need a mattress ten years ago? You could pick from three options at the mattress retail store on the corner across from your house. Need a mattress now? There are 175 online mattress companies that you can buy from and ship to you within minutes. With choice comes higher expectations.
‘Customers are always right’ is now 'Customers always have a choice.’
What do consumers expect to do with brands?
Consumers no longer passively consume content and haphazardly purchase from brands. For brands they care about, consumers are active.
Technology like video and social media platforms like Instagram created a two-way dialogue between consumers and brands. It fosters engagement - consumers can talk directly with brands they care about, watch influencers who promote brands with long-form video, share in-depth product reviews with their friends, and create a spectacle by merely opening the package (aka the trend of 'unboxing').
Consumers expect to actively engage with brands by the following:
Connect deeply with the brand's values.
Derive identity change from the product or service.
Receive impeccable service.
Join a tribe with other people who identify with the product.
Converse with the brand in a two-way dialogue.
‘Own’ the brand through loyalty, not reach a tier or status.
What can a brand do to meet these expectations?
Move beyond solving customer problems to changing identities.
Marketing for a product can't be limited to fixing an immediate and tangible need, like satiation and taste. It’s not enough. Marketing should appeal to one of the many identities a person holds about themselves. Millennials are increasingly identifying with brands, products, and services they use.
According to an Inc. survey, Millennials are the most brand-loyal generation. Social media amplifies this because it provides an endless source of social proof for people to seek and copy from the people and now brands that they follow.
Grammarly, Bulletproof, and Rent The Runway don’t promote their products and services; they promote becoming a better version of yourself. If your brand is narrowing in on the problem the product solves, it’s not working hard enough.
Recognize the blurring lines between your internal culture and the external brand.
The chief executive officer is more than the primary decision maker. Sure, they matter because they make critical decisions about where to take the business. However, in today’s digitally open and hyper-investigative world, they also represent the brand in a much more powerful way — they are an extension of the brand’s values, not simply the highest paid decision makers.
Social media is the foundation for people to showcase their brands intimately to their audiences. People are now brands. Take Melissa Urban, who co-created the brand Whole30, but is also the brand. Melissa's followers demand to know her thoughts on everything down to what mayonnaise she approves of during Whole30. Her as the founder and the brand Whole30 are synonymous.
Hiding toxic work environments is nearly impossible in today’s digital record-keeping world. Below are four former chief executive offers at top companies like Uber and WeWork before their decisions were deemed inexcusable by the public.
Private messages in the Away Luggage’s Slack ousted the company’s co-founder, Steph Korey, as toxic and harsh. Within days of the article being published, she was fired (and reinstated shortly after that with much public criticism). There is no longer a distinction between a CEO’s values and that of the brands. Customers are paying attention.
Let Your Customers In On the Fun
Henry Ford is a north star for marketers, with his famous quote being a go-to in their Powerpoint presentations, “If I had asked people what they want, they would have said faster horses.” Henry Ford’s customer philosophy from the 1940s would not work with today’s vocal and active consumers. Consumers do want to tell you what they want. It’s your job to figure out how to develop that into a product they’ll later buy. In the early 2000’s, shareholders were limited to investors and equity owners.
The new shareholder is your end customer. They may not have voting rights, but they have the right to vote with their dollars.
Lively, a bra and undies company, grew their ambassador program to 100,000 members, and founder, Michelle Cordeiro Grant, said, “We always say that the ambassador program is a two-way street.”
Customers flock to brands like Glossier that pull them into the development of products. Not only do fans get a chance to speak up about products they want, but they also connect with and build a tribe with other brand followers. By letting fans in on the ‘company process’, brands are effectively enabling fans to ‘own’ a part of the company - a type of loyalty that Millennials crave. This radical loyalty program goes beyond the typical tier, award, or badge mechanisms that most programs rely on today. Millennials want to be on the inside, not boxed inside a loyalty tier.
Involve customers from the beginning of the process, and don’t wait to involve them in focus group testing at the end of the process. Keep an open communication line between the brand and customers, like Facebook groups, through Instagram comments, and beta or ambassador email groups.
Take A Brand Stand in a Polarized World
Consumers live in a polarized world. Brands are sensing it. Nearly 60% of 1,000 Americans surveyed by Edelman in 2018 said they would choose, switch, avoid, or boycott a brand based on its stand on societal issues. That is up from 47% in 2017.
“Consumers are not just voting in elections, they are voting at the stores by choosing brands aligned with their values,” said Richard Edelman, chief executive of Edelman, a big public relations firm that has studied the issue. “You cannot be absolutely relevant for one segment in this increasingly polarized world without accepting that that’s not going to be the message that other segments want to hear,” said Alan Jope, the chief executive of Unilever PLC, owner of Dove soap and Breyers ice cream, in an interview.
“I really profoundly believe that seeking this mushy middle ground, that’s not how the world is anymore.” - Alan Jope
While the risk of alienating customers by clearly stating values is not insignificant, the environment is shifting and causing more brands to take a stand to stay relevant with ideological customers.
Find unique ways to engage and keep customers
Customer acquisition costs have risen significantly, making it harder to reach consumers with paid ads on Facebook and Instagram. According to ProfitWell, overall customer acquisition costs have been steadily rising for B2B and B2C companies. Over the last five years, overall customer acquisition costs have risen almost 50%.
Brands like Chipotle and Recess tested campaigns that rewarded consumers on Venmo, cutting out expensive spend on platforms like Instagram. Subway creatively teamed up with Netflix to promote the premiere of Green Eggs and Ham to cut through the noise of typical ads. Streaming companies, Venmo, WhatsApp, TikTok are the places to focus to cut through the noise and high ad spend found on Facebook and Instagram.
It may seem like the hard part is acquiring customers, but it’s the beginning. 92% of customers, according to Hubspot, will switch to another company after three (or fewer) bad experiences. Their research also showed that 54% make decisions based on customer service. Treat customer support teams as a critical line of support, not a lifeline or bandaid.
How can customer support groups be a more crucial part of the organization?
Empowered to make decisions in the best interest for the customer.
Have transparency into the company, products, and operations to arm customers with the information they seek.
Provided with information on the financials and operations of the company to make decisions that don't harm the company (as defined by the company).
I fell in love with a pair of Outdoor Voices hiking shorts I purchased last fall, but I was in desperate need of the pants equivalent. After searching their site, I found nothing. I emailed customer support. A kind rep informed me 'to be on the lookout in October because I might get my wish.' With a cartwheel emoji to end the email, of course. Why was this powerful? Because suddenly I was ‘in the know' for my favorite brand, felt ownership and heard, and more importantly, for Outdoor Voices, set a reminder to check the site in October to purchase the pants. This delightful moment happened because the customer support rep was informed about upcoming merchandise, empowered to quickly let me know about the new item (didn't need to seek approval from another team), and understood that a repeat customer is more valuable than a new customer. Getting that type of customer interaction from an old-fashioned, slow-moving brand (I won't name names) would be next to impossible.
Brands matter... and they don't
As eMarketer pointedly put it, brands are more increasingly important, and conversely, less important to customers. It simply means that customers have the choice to care or not care. Their care and attention turns into purchases. Millennials are increasingly raising the standards for what care will turn into purchases.
In 2020, brands must figure out how to get customers to care and to choose them. And capturing their care means creating a brand whose sole goal isn’t to sell its products, but goes beyond it.
