1) Mobile Rules.

According to Nielsen, the well-known research company, 85% of Millennials (ages 18-34) own smart phones, which makes it the largest demographic segment. With today’s mobile-device culture, it is essential that your landing pages are conducive to the small screen mobile layout, keeping everything tight and narrow. The less a user has to zoom or scroll the better. Instead, opt for “nav” bars and links to allow users direct where they want to dig in deeper. This will really force you to hierarchize your content.

2) Simple Still Graphics and Word Art.

And as cool as that large moving graphic looks, it’s better to opt for smaller simpler graphics with quicker load times than larger, more complex, moving graphics. Instead, engage users with simple, yet stimulating visuals and word bites that focus on colors, layout, composition, balance, placement, juxtapositions, contrast, verbose adjectives that trigger the imagination, etc. Don’t forget to make sure your call to action doesn’t get lost in the mix and stands out in an easy to find place. I recommend to even make that little doohickey a piece of art in itself that’s graphically stimulating.

3) Native Gaming Integration. 

The gaming industry has really taken off with the growth of digital platforms and cheap, easy access apps. With the shortened attention span of Millennials, they now reach for their phones on auto-pilot when having to wait in line or kill boredom. Games are definitely a top go-to app. The thing about integrating your advertising into gaming apps, is that a game is already priming the user psychologically into an easy to hack mindset. Take for example, Angry Birds. You slingshot those birds high and far, attempt after attempt, until you pass to the next level or break your record. After working hard to win, the mind is set up to accept the win and anything associated with it. The key here is to style your ads as the reward. In this scenario, if your ad is relevant to the game and the win, then you win.

4) Shareability. 

Word of mouth has always been one of the top reigning methods of marketing. With so much content saturating the online world, Millennials have had to adopt a sensitive junk filter system to weed out non-credible sources. Friends, family and close communities are still most people’s main credible source, thanks to the spider web of trust that weaves through them. Thus it is critical that one of your “calls to action” always be to share your content. Make sure that it’s placed in an obvious spot on a mobile screen and is always bite size incorporating an engaging graphic.

5) Rising Ad Products.

Millennial users have a shorter tolerance for disruptive ads as it results in a bad user experience. They much prefer ads with a direct relevance to what they are doing in the moment on their device. As a result, Apple gave consumers the ability to block pop-up ads in the new iOS 9 for their Apple devices, the most used and owned mobile device brand. With Apple leading the way, other brands will no doubt quickly follow. As a result, marketers now need to look at creating more native advertising deals, such as sponsored podcasts/music stations/channels, partnership or cross-media marketing, and product placement.

6) Real-time.

As we said before, with Millenials used to having relevant content at their fingertips, they expect the most up to date information. Because of this, having a team to respond in the moment to trends as they occur, will be much more successful than the traditional editorial team’s planned calendaring of content topics alone.

SOURCES

1. Entrepreneur.com. 3 Essential Tips for Marketing to Millennials.May 18, 2015. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246199

2. Nielsen.com. Mobile Millenials: Over 85% of Generation Y Owns Smartphones. September 5, 2014. http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2014/mobile-millennials-over-85-percent-of-generation-y-owns-smartphones.html

3. Lindsay Stein. Adage.com. RIP Millennials: Marketing Will Be ‘Age Agnostic’ Next Year. November 17, 2015. http://adage.com/article/agency-news/2016-means-death-targeted-millennial-marketing/301380

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