Leverage Influencer Marketing to Win Millennials Over

Your Millennial customers don’t care about traditional forms of advertising. Instead of generic TV commercials and intrusive display ads, they’re focused on personalized, highly interactive forms of brand promotion. To reach out to them effectively, brands need to get to know them enough to create highly targeted messages.

This is where influencer marketing steps in. It gives Millennials the opportunity to learn more about your brand by interacting with real people and listening to real stories. Just like in real life, you don’t want to brag about yourself. You want other people to do so.

Precisely because of that, we can say that influencer marketing and Millennial marketing go hand in hand. Here is how you can get the most out of this mighty combo.

The Key is in Finding the Right Influencers

The success of your influencer marketing campaign depends on the influencers you approach. This is actually one of the major mistakes marketers make. They usually believe that connecting with just any influencer will do. For your Millennial audience, famous heads talking about your brand are not enough. They observe the broader context, wanting to understand what value your products or services bring.

The number of followers also doesn’t matter. If someone has an impressive online following, but only 2% of their followers engage with their content, they’re not the right choice for you. You need to connect with the people that can communicate your brand values to your audience effectively. Here are a few ways to find the right influencers:

• Pay attention to your social media followers and you may see that there are a few micro-influencers that may be interested in working with you. They’re already following you, so you just need to check their follower base, engagement, and relevance to your niche before reaching out.
• Hashtags are also great, as they let you find the influential people in your niche that are already promoting products similar to yours. This is where using hashtag research tools like Hashtagify or Rite Tag may help.
• Find local bloggers in your niche. You can start with manual search queries, like “food bloggers New York” or “New York food bloggers.” Of course, searching for and analyzing influencers manually may be time-consuming and prevent you from focusing on other aspects of your campaign. Precisely because of that, you could use link building tools that will filter out all poor-quality sites and provide relevant results only.

Work with Micro-Influencers

When starting their campaigns, many small businesses dream of a collaboration with top social media influencers. However, this is not always a good idea for a few reasons. First, getting your small business noticed by them is difficult. Second, to work with them, you need to have deep pockets. Finally, even though they have millions of followers, mega-influencers may not engage your target audience properly. People are more eager to interact with the people they can relate to more closely.

Precisely because of that, you need to narrow your focus and start by connecting with micro-influencers your Millennial audience follows. They may have a narrower follower base, but their audience is better-targeted. Most importantly, their posts feel natural, building trust with their audience and engaging them effectively. Therefore, it’s not surprising that their posts have 60% higher engagement rates.

Even big brands have seen a great potential behind micro-influencer campaigns. For example, Coca-Cola teamed up with an Australian micro-influencer Alan Tsibulya. They created a hilarious sponsored Instagram video, where the author impersonates 13 types of people you may meet at the party. Supposedly, the campaign’s engagement rates were astounding.

Organize Giveaways

Statistics say that 77% of Millennials participate in different loyalty programs. They love brands that appreciate them as customers and reward their loyalty. Precisely because of that, they’re the perfect demographic to target with giveaways. And, this is where influencer marketing can help.

For example, you could send a product to an influencer and ask them to work with you on a giveaway. This collaboration may skyrocket your brand exposure and follower base. Even though I may sound like a broken record, I need to emphasize the importance of working with the right person, the one that aligns with your brand values. After all, if their audience is not interested in your products, you may fail to build the desired buzz around your giveaway.

With that in mind, here are a few steps to take:

• Offer the products valuable to your audience.
• Ask an influencer for feedback and suggestions. After all, they know their followers better than you do.
• Don’t overcomplicate the procedure of entering the giveaway. On the other hand, encourage people to participate actively by sharing your post, leaving comments, and utilizing branded hashtags, etc. Research shows that 44% of Millennials are eager to promote products via social networks in exchange for a reward.

How does your Brand Contribute to the Community?

Is your business involved in any form of charitable work? Do your products contribute to the betterment of the community? No matter if you donate money to persons in need every time someone makes a purchase or your products are making our planet cleaner, this is something you should highlight when targeting Millennials.

Namely, 61% of Millennials are concerned about the state of the world and want to make it a better place. And, their social responsibility reflects on their purchases, too. Why do they buy from brands like TOMS? They do so because they know that, for every pair of shoes they buy, another pair will be sent to the people in need.

So, your goal is to find an influencer that stands for the same social cause and take your branding campaign to a whole new level. Fortunately, this is something brands and influencers have in common, probably because the majority of social media influencers are Millennials themselves.

Leverage User-Generated Content

Millennials don’t trust brands anymore. They’re values-driven and focus on real-life experiences. Instead of interacting with your ads or branded posts, they search for other users’ opinions of your brand. And, there is one type of content that resonates with them well and that is user-generated content. For over 84% of them, UGC on a website has at least some impact on their buying decisions.

And, one of the greatest ways to encourage user-generated content and build trust with your target audience is to work with social media influencers. For example, you could gift them your popular products and, if they like them, chances are they’ll review them and post a photo of them online. Apart from raising people’s awareness of your brand, influencers posting your product images may also inspire their followers to do the same.

Influencer Marketing and Millennial Marketing are a Match Made in Heaven

Understanding what resonates with Millennials is challenging, as they are a highly diverse group. However, one thing is sure- they find branded content annoying. They expect your brand to provide honest, real-life examples and this is where influencer marketing shines. When done right, it can increase your following, boost brand awareness, and help you connect with your Millennial customers on an emotional level.

Author Bio:

Lauren Wiseman is an entrepreneur, currently based in Melbourne and a regular contributor to bizzmarkblog.com. She assists clients in growing their personal and professional brands in a fast-changing and demanding market environment. Covering finance and investment topics, Lauren strongly believes in holistic approach to business.

 

What is your experience with influencer marketing?