Seven Marketing Strategies For Reaching Younger Customers

Jan 23, 2019
Expert Panel - Forbes Council
Forbes Business Development Council - CommunityVoice
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Adept marketing is all about understanding the wants and needs of your target audience and encapsulating those elements in your marketing strategy. These days, the new priorities of millennials and Generation Z have challenged marketing professionals to evolve rapidly. Indeed, the ability to quickly pivot to new social stances and platforms can be a huge benefit in any industry that caters to younger customers.

Not surprisingly, that ability to anticipate and pivot can be much harder to execute than it is to say. So, which marketing strategies will both resonate with younger generations and align with your business? To help, these seven entrepreneurs from Forbes Business Development Council share their best advertising and marketing methods for gaining traction with millennials and Generation Z, as well as why they are so effective.

1. Create Fresh, Relatable Content

The younger generation needs fresh content that's relatable to them in some form. For example, creating content for a clothing brand with kids wearing the new winter collection and dancing Fortnite-style, then posting it on Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook, is a strategy that could work very well. - Mehul Agarwal, WinWire


2. Implement A Modern Brand

One thing we've done this year was to implement a new, modern brand. We realized that we were actually losing business because people couldn't easily identify who we were as a company. Millennials and Gen Z especially will often only engage with brands they trust, so have a trustworthy brand that reflects the values of the company to increase sales opportunities. - Christian Valiulis, Automatic Payroll System

3. Know Their Celebrities

To connect with the younger audience, marketing professionals should first understand who influences millennials and Generation Z. While marketers have long understood the importance of utilizing celebrities in advertising campaigns, the types of celebrities who resonate with younger consumers can be different, as a YouTuber or an Instagrammer could have more sway than an actor or an athlete. - Adam Mendler, Beverly Hills Chairs

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4. Build A Genuine Brand

Millennials and Gen Z are often extremely sensitive to marketing window dressing. You should be an authentic brand if you expect to resonate with them. I would suggest going to square zero and looking at your mission and vision statements, brand values, and even brand identity and design language. - Justin Stanwix, Wonder Unit

5. Go Social

Millennials are highly engaged on social media platforms, a digital marketing component many companies are lacking. Make sure that social media (Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter) is part of your digital marketing strategy. Your content should be relevant and topical. Ensure it's something that younger generations engage with, and tie it into your overall brand or digital marketing story. - Scott Douglas Clary, Bedrock Affect

6. Seek Out The Right Demographic For Insight

My best advice is to go to people in that age range, learn from them, and see what they do, how they interact and the kinds of apps they use on a daily basis. Go and talk to real people in that demographic and you could find all the answers you need. The better you understand them, the more effectively you can market and sell to them. - Clinton Senkow, Influencive

7. Meet Them Where They Are

Social media platforms continue to provide fast, versatile and cost-effective ways to reach young audiences, who generally use their mobile devices often. Geo-targeting ads on apps can also be useful; for example, you could reach sports fans on ESPN or a related app. - Alex Kowtun, Monkey In Paradise Vodka​