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Millennials are the largest generation since and outpacing the Baby Boomers. They are not limited to the tags of ‘consumers’. In fact, now they are getting their seats as decision-makers in B2B organizations of every size – small, medium and even large. Also, nearly half of all B2B researchers are millennials.
What we, as marketers, need to understand is that the millennial buyers are different.
They are the most tech-savvy and educated buyers. Many studies have shown that the way they make buying decisions is different from those of the other generations. And thus, a different approach is needed to target the millennials the right way.
Before you start building your next marketing plan to target the millennials, here’s all that you need to know:
1. Cut-off the old sales-pitch
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Gone are the days when a typical salesy tone used to work while interacting with a B2B prospect! Especially, when it comes to the Millennial B2B buyer, they hate it.
The reason behind this is millennials are the diehard fans of information. They look for information in the content that you provide. They are risk-averse, and they believe in doing sufficient research before initiating a buying journey. In fact, when they begin a buying journey with you, they make sure that the person or brand with whom they are interacting is the expert in the industry.
So, create content that answers what precisely your millennial buyers look for:
- Create videos that demonstrate your services and solutions
- Write free-guides, blogs, and whitepapers that explain the features and benefits of your products
- Pay attention to the skim readers. Divide content into headings, sub-headings, and bulleted points
2. ‘Emails’ are important
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As per the data by IBM,
69% of Millennial B2B buyers prefer to engage vendors during the sales cycle using email
The numbers above break the myth that the tech-savvy millennial buyers don’t prefer emails much. In fact, emails are the priority of over more than half of the buyers.
To target and convert millennials into buyers, you need to move with a holistic approach:
- Segment the prospects based on their customer-behavior
- Remember, millennials like the easy ways of doing business. So, keep it in mind while creating an email marketing strategy
- Including images, short videos, or appealing content about your services and solutions can work great as millennials are more likely to get enticed by such types of content
However, before you start applying any of the above metrics, make sure that you have done sufficient research about the buyers. Knowing every nerve of the needs of your audience will help you curate email strategy that brings you better engagement and increased conversions.
#Bonus Tip:
Inactive subscribers are like dead leads. Sometimes, they just need a tap of remembrance, and you can get long-termed customers. But make sure to go in compliance with the GDPR and other related rules and regulations before you start rolling out an email marketing campaign.
3. Mobile friendly video content
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Mobile is the ‘first’ for millennials. More than often, they consume most of the content, especially videos on mobile devices. However much is talked about mobile optimization, many marketers have still not optimized their websites or apps for mobiles.
Marketers need to come up with videos that are mobile friendly. And when we talk about videos, there are a few things that need to be considered before stepping into the world of video marketing.
Google has started testing videos in search results. These video-based ads are a brilliant way to connect with the video-lovers millennials:
- Make these video ads short, simple, and again full of sufficient information
- Also, pay attention to location-based searches as 76% of people who searched on their smartphones for something nearby visit a business within a day. (According to data-driven by Think with Google)
4. Stop cold calling!
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Never cold call a millennial.
Cold calling, one of the traditional methods of marketing, is still used by many of the marketers. However, the fact with millennials is that they are not in its favor. The reason is they are digitally savvy. Information in abundance is at their fingertips. Thus they preferably don’t want to interact with a salesperson at the initial stage of their buying journey.
Another reason behind the millennials risk aversion to cold calls is that they consider it a time-consuming practice. Most of the times, they believe in face-to-face meetings before taking a buying decision and during the buying process.
The Millennials are a typical generation of buyers. As they are having and will have a more noticeable influence on the ways B2B marketing was done in past days, marketers need to bring significant changes in their marketing strategies.
