Whether you work as a CMO, Growth Strategist, or Startup founder you may find yourself in need to create marketing strategies targeted to younger audiences.
We have published this new blog post around this topic because it is a common concept widespread among marketers that younger customers are hard-to-get and tougher to engage compared to previous generations.
The term Gen Z is more than a buzzword. As a digital marketer, you’re probably already familiar with the term Gen Z and Millennials. However, even the most experienced marketers get confused between the term Gen X, Z, Millennials, or Gen Alfa.
To help you on this, we would suggest proceeding step by step exploring in the next paragraph who Gen Zers are and why are they actually hard to market.
Who are Gen Zers?
Before going into details at the execution level showing #5 tips to better engage Gen Z, it’s important for your brand to have a clear definition of their demographics and psychographics.
Younger Individuals…
- are born between 1997 and 2010;
- are mobile natives;
- show interest in social causes;
- are ethnically diverse;
- love to feel connected with communities;
- tend to be pragmatic;
- are fast learner: 38% describe themselves in this way;
- are tech-savvy and happy to try new products as soon as they are available;
Premise: Are you Ready for a Cultural Change?
At ThePlay we believe Gen Z is the hard-to-reach audience mainly because it’s required a new, fresh and different approach compared to the past from brands.
As mentioned above, Gen Z is a smart, tech-savvy, bold, imperfect, fast learner, and mobile natives individuals. They buy new products mainly from brands that inspire their values; the way to create long-term relationships with Gen Z is by building trust creating authentic content. Communities are a means to nurture them cultivating meaningful connections day by day.
Gone are the times when we could produce boring blog posts or endless Paid Social campaigns with a frequency even higher than 7!
What is required from businesses to accomplish their mission impossible to create meaningful connections with Gen Z?
We think organizations need to be open for a change: Founders and C-Levels have the responsibility to work closely with their marketing team: change means bringing on the table true values able to inspire customers to a change where authenticity and true values come first. Businesses need to seriously incorporate their purpose into their marketing strategies. For this reason, we believe only a limited number of brands at the present would be able to market Gen Z naturally and effectively. Startups and creative companies have more chances to engage them more effectively than traditional companies.
As a Founder or CMO look at yourself in the mirror. You will find the right answers to get started!
So, when you start to play sit down, fasten your seat belts. Here’s a list of 5 tactics we suggest you consider in your marketing strategy.
1. Earn Trust from Communities
A number of researches can prove that communities are critical to success. Well engaged communities can help a brand from the awareness stage, brand familiarity, product discovery to loyalty. However, keeping current customers engaged is just as important (if not more) than important and complex than gaining new first-time users. This is true especially for younger audiences digital native-born around mobile devices get used to meet other people on Twitch, Instagram, and Snapchat.
Younger individuals are smarter and tech-savvy compared to Millennials and Gen X.
What does it mean in practice?
Just to mention a few examples: brands need to create authentic and constant content; moderating comments better comparing to the past providing timely responses. Being honest and fair with your community will help to increase the brand reputation in the long term; they will appreciate your authenticity and will give you trust in the long term.
2. Create Short Format Video
Facebook lost over 25% of its users between the ages of 13 and 17 in a period of 3 years. Younger generations think Facebook is for old people: Gen Z prefers shorter video format compared to more traditional media, such as Netflix or Television. This is one of the reasons why new platforms as TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram Reels became popular.
Teens prefer short video sharable format bursting with overlays, effects, and music that has proven to be effective for influencers and brands alike.
3. Focus on Eye-Catching Contents
Visual, eye-catching content should be a top priority for any brand trying to engage younger customers. Graphics has to convey imperfection, simplicity, authenticity. Use images that capture the attention of your audience. Ensure your visual content is relevant to your target viewers and that is unique to your brand. Keep in mind what Gen Z really loves: transparency and authenticity.
Be a fun and cool brand will help contents to be shared. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, communities will appreciate it.
4. Embrace The Diversity in Your Content
In Europe, 56% of Gen Z expect brands to make their stance on social and political issues known publicly.
Authentic, diverse content is what truly engages the audience and makes them feel encouraged in exploring brands. Where there is room for imperfection brands have their chance to bring out their personality.
Are you ready to start? Click here to see 4 examples of brands embracing diversity. 😉
5. Partner with Content Creators
The definition of influencer marketing is broad and plays around the main concepts of trust, authority, and community. When we talk about Millennials and Gen Zers one of the most effective marketing channels we can suggest is Influencer marketing because teens like to hear from trusted voices in communities likewise to word-of-mouth. Traditionally forms of advertising (Performance Marketing) are becoming less effective due to the rise of AdBlockers. Paid Social is recommended only if content and copywriting is not perceived as annoying or intrusive. Avoiding the aggressive use of remarketing ads to younger generations can be a great idea.
Conversely, we suggest growing your startup by partnering with Content Creators so-called Micro-Influencers. It’s proved that they can drive a higher engagement rate than larger accounts; besides, micro-influencers are less demanding and cheaper which is great for startups.
Conclusion
Implementing marketing strategies for Gen Zers can be tough. The whole organization needs to be ready to share its values playing the game in the first person. A great execution requires efforts, experience, time, creativity, and empathy to produce long-lasting results. If you need help to grow your startup with influencer marketing campaigns we can help. Our team of experts has proven experience across industry and fast-growing startups. Reach out to us! Getting started here!
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