How Interior Designers Can Market to Millennials

Venturing into the world of millennial marketing can be an exhausting task. Within just a few years, millennials have gone from selfie-obsessed to the largest generation in the workplace. Between the ages of twenty-five and forty, Millennials are the largest living generation, holding over $1 trillion in spending power each year.

For that, marketers are focusing on millennials more than any other age group right now. As a result, they continue to shake up the market with diverse ideas and needs never seen before. Boomers hold 57% of the wealth in this country and are at peak buying power, though, so why are marketers so consumed by the millennial generation, and how can you tap into this market?

Millennials are thought to be one of the hardest groups to target because of their wide-ranging demographics, hobbies, and values. So it is no wonder successful brands need to almost concoct an exclusive amalgam for marketing to millennials. One day they are driving towards a specific set of products, and the next week they are moving to something different.

This first step in any marketing strategy is to intimately understand the audience, in public and behind closed doors.

Related Article: “How to Identify a Target Audience for Increased Profitability”

Millennials are hopeful, driven, educated individuals, with over forty percent of them holding a bachelor’s degree or higher. Generally speaking, they are employed at decently high-paying jobs, many in management positions. So for a brand to hastily throw together a marketing plan for this generation would be a death wish. Instead, brands need to completely throw out their rule book and stop marketing to millennials like previous generations. This generation is buying but doing it differently.

Millennials Are Redefining Brand Expectations

The majority of this generation is hitting major life milestones like growing families, graduating college, buying houses, and entering the workforce. Which creates a whole host of needs only unique to this generation. They are the highest consumers of technology, not in the sense of advancements but entering new fields of life will require many purchases as they transition, finding their stance in business.

They influence the behaviors of both their parents and Gen Z, yet some companies question if they still have the same brand loyalty and purchasing power. This is why the majority of your time should be spent researching this audience down to tiny details. There is no black and white answer on how to market to millennials and their purchasing power because they are all different. Their influence in the market depends a lot on how they save and where their values lie. Just because they are making money does not give brands the right to assume they will spend it.  It is entirely subjective to how your company can specifically satisfy their needs.

Selling Your Mission

The first step is getting their attention and keeping it by selling your company's mission. Don’t just focus on your service or products through your marketing. Take the deliberate effort to demonstrate how you serve the community. This will go a long way toward building loyalty. Millennials want to know what you stand for and how you positively impact the community. This group is much more interested in social causes and how brands make a difference than previous generations.

Related Article: “Understanding and Identifying Company Values for Brand Strategy”

Your brand must show personality and frequently engage with viewers to have a stronghold on the market. Millennials have vocally expressed their values and priorities, and they are looking for brands to encompass similar beliefs.

Take a strong stand on what your company believes. Millennials seek out brands that reflect not only their beliefs but also their style and personality. Almost fifty percent of millennials are more willing to buy from a company that supports a cause they believe in. Forty percent say they will pay a higher price for brands that mirror an image they want to convey about themselves.

Plain and simple, if you help millennials believe in your product and brand, they will purchase and tell all their friends about it, near and far. Be transparent, giving your brand a human touch. Engage with them organically on various platforms around the web and don’t be afraid to clearly showcase your mission to serve your clients.

Be Where They Are

I’m sure you have seen companies go all-in on social media within the past couple of years, posting on all platforms several times a day. But, you wonder how they could just nail their marketing plan and pitch with these aesthetically stunning profiles and schematically curated content.

You see them get tons of views, likes, and comments by bombarding their audience with stimulating content. But this is not the only way to gain exposure and increase revenue flow. Millennials actually like a balance between simplicity and chaos. They are drawn to both modern tones and a vintage feel. Classic colors with pops of brighter color sprinkled in speak to this audience. Try various methods, then try a few more to see patterns and determine a profitable recipe for digitally marketing to millennials.

When drafting your social media plan, use less wording and more visualization. Make sure your initial exposure follows a direct line to customer retention. The goal is to spur further interest in your brand by getting them thinking. Funnel them from exposure and discovery to engagement, consideration, conversion, customer relationship, and ending in retention.

Eighty-five percent of millennials use social media daily, so utilize that information and start marketing here: Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter through video and visually appealing content.

Implement Snack Size Content

Companies often make the mistake of having a solid marketing plan with oodles of content, launching, and giving their audiences everything within the first month. Then they run out of new information to share over time, resulting in loss of attention. The way to combat this is to take web links you want them to arrive at (i.e., blog articles, web and landing pages, review boards, etc.) and create several debatable topics around those. Millennials will engage with branded content only if it checks almost all of these boxes:

1. Brief
2. Entertaining
3. Funny
4. Fresh/New
5. Unique
6. Informative/Educational
7. Relevant To Who They Are

If you are not even close to an expert and do not feel like spending endless amounts of time researching the newest social media tactics to lure consumers in, hire someone to do the job for you. This marketing journey is not about how well you can juggle working as CEO, HR, accounts receivable, the accounting department, and the marketer. One would simply collapse after a week of wearing all those hats. Not a single human alive succeed for very long trying that method.

So work smarter, not harder, and I promise the end result will come with much less agony and struggle.

Learn how to effectively capture your audience’s attention and create a digital marketing funnel here “Why You Should Be Blogging.”

Building Trust

Social media influencers, whatever our opinion of them may be, are actually really effective marketers. Millennials easily trust recommendations when made by people they look up to or think highly of. They are seven times more likely to give personal information to a trusted brand. They are also more likely to buy something if they hear a friend or family member likes it. Use this to your advantage by signing contracts with social media endorsers they already respect and admire.

They are deeply loyal to certain brands they love but are willing to change their minds in a heartbeat if you convince them enough. It is not difficult to establish trust immediately with millennials, but it is crucial to do so before anything else. Just like fish, once they are hooked, you just need to reel them in as efficiently and as quickly as possible.

Optimize Your Content for Mobile and Desktop

You cannot just set it and forget while expecting your website and content to be seen. Millennials are the world’s first generation of digital natives. This means their brain automatically picks up when content is not optimized for that particular screen. Frequently check all platforms for tablet, desktop, and mobile confirming your content (i.e., website, social posts, etc.) is responsive in that viewing mode. Just as stated above, hiring someone to confirm all your online media is optimized would save a lot of time you most likely could use during this time.

Understanding what does and does not appeal to millennials can seem impossible. This unique generation is filled with authentic, forward thinkers and risk-takers. They expect their brands to mimic a similar if not replicable tone to theirs. Millennials are wired for authentic, content-driven, honest experiences that cater to who they are and the voices they yearn to share.

Start by throwing out the old rulebook because most likely, none of those cater to this generation. Define your brand on the highest values it upholds. Support an impactful cause your company believes in.

Move where they are located with strong statements of human experience while properly utilizing the most modern-day advertisers, social media influencers. Finally, conclude your efforts with an analytical report and an understanding of what truly sells your story.

Tags: interior design business, how to grow your interior design business, marketing to millennials, behind the design, business tips for interior designers, women entrepreneurs, women in design, marketing strategy, marketing for designers, marketing tips