and
Don't Even Know It
By: Colleen Walton
Brand Strategist
I recently saw a LinkedIn article titled “Don’t Leave
Millennials Voicemails.” During a
conference, I heard a speaker say, “Millennials don’t like to drive.” These sweeping generalizations are sending
some communities into a tizzy over how to appeal to this mysterious
generation. “Millennial” is a buzzword
used to describe anyone born between 1982 and 2004. If we limit this to working-aged individuals,
we’re looking at a group of people between the ages of 16 and 32. This is such a broad range that making any
assumptions about the generation as a whole is setting you up to fail. I wish I could tell you the secret to
attracting young people, but I can’t; however, I can tell you the most common
mistakes I see in marketing to millennials.
Saying
all the wrong things
A while back, I met with the landlord of an apartment
complex in the suburb of a major metro.
When I asked her to describe the neighborhood, she told me it was “quite,
safe, and perfect for young families.” I
didn’t hear anything she said after that because that’d already put me
off. As an unmarried, childless creative
type, “safe, quiet, and family friendly” sounded boring. None of that appealed to me, but it does to
other people. A high school friend of
mine is a newlywed engineer with babies on the brain. For her, a place described as family friendly
is ideal. Despite being young,
highly-educated, and in a high-paying job, she doesn’t want to live in a place
that focuses on marketing its bars and restaurants. The problem might not be what you’re selling,
but rather how you’re selling it.
Just like how a home-buyer assumes that when a real estate
agent uses the word “cozy” she really means “small,” people on the receiving
end of your marketing efforts have the potential to misconstrue the things you
say. Take a step back and try to put
yourself in your audience’s shoes. Are
they hearing the same things you think you’re saying?
Trying
too hard
Every sitcom has an episode in which the mom and/or dad
try a little too hard to be cool and end up embarrassing themselves and their
children. Sometimes marketing efforts
aimed at young people feel a bit like that.
It’s like someone Googled “What’s cool?” and ran with the first thing
they saw. It’s important that your
millennial magnetism grows genuinely from what you already are because people
can tell when it’s insincere. We tell
our clients all the time that their brand already exists. You can fight tooth and nail to change it, or
you can embrace it.
Stop Googling millennials, take a walk around your
community, and look at what you’ve got going for you. If you already have a vibrant downtown, make
it the best downtown you can. If you’re
already attracting young families, beef up your parks and playgrounds. When you stop trying to be someone else, you
can become a better version of yourself.
Looking
in all the wrong places
This last bit may be hard to hear, but someone has to say
it: Sometimes kids just want to leave.
It’s not you. It’s them. When they spend their whole lives living in
one place, they lust for the adventure of leaving. It doesn’t matter if you have everything
they’re looking for, they’re going to leave because they feel like they have to
go out and see the world. No matter how
hard you try, they’re still going to go.
The silver lining is that young people in towns all across the country
are leaving their hometowns in search of something new and shiny.
In my hometown of Indianapolis, a lot of kids grow up
with dreams of living in Chicago. Kids
in Indiana’s second-tier cities dream of living in Indianapolis. Kids in small towns dream of living in those
second-tier cities. If you’re a
second-tier city, you might not be able to attract young people from the big
city, but you can get them from the small towns. You may not be new and shiny to your own
kids, but you can be new and shiny to someone else’s.
In
Conclusion
Marketing is all about identifying your strengths and
using them to your advantage, but sometimes that requires a shift in thinking
because your preconceived notions about millennials might be what's hurting
you. Like generations before, millennials are a diverse group.
Treating them like they have a hive mind will only repel them. When you
begin to recognize what you have and use that to drive what you want, you'll
find much more success.
Brand Acceleration is a full-service
marketing communications, brand management and website development firm with a
focus on community and economic development.
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