Podcast Transcript:
If your business has millennial customers, you’re gonna want to listen to this one.
Hey there, I’m Jillian Kendrick and welcome to the Momentum Marketing podcast. I’m a mama, a wife, an entrepreneur and a three time best selling co-author in each episode, you’ll get real world practical advice and strategies and maybe a parenting tip or two along the way. If you’re ready to create a business that supports your family and your lifestyle, then you’re in the right place.
Hey, there. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. We are talking millennials: marketing to millennials, selling to millennials, serving millennials through your business. So if you have that kind of business, if you are targeting millennials, whether it’s parents, moms, people within that generation, you’re gonna want to listen up and I’m doing this podcast a little bit differently. So normally the way that I prepare my podcast is, I can outline a couple of topics.
I write down some notes, maybe some statistics and a few other things. But today I’m actually going back in the archives, y’all.
I was looking up a topic because I’m in the throes of creating my webinar doing all that stuff and I honestly had to come up with a topic for this week’s episode.
And so I went back through all of my notebooks and this is a really, really good topic. You guys, if you are ever looking for content, if you’re like, what do I post on social media today? What do I talk about? And nothing’s coming to mind. Go back to all the notebooks, all the notes that you ever taken on your phone. All the ideas, right? I’m constantly screens shotting things with photos on my phone. I’m making voice memos when I’m like driving in the car and can’t write or type things down. I’ve gone to multiple live events or virtual events. I’ve spoken at multiple live and virtual events and so I have tons of notebooks, tons of notepads, tons of saved word docs of inspiration that I could grab from just about anywhere. So if you have any of that, there is a great way for you to find some content or some topics to talk about. If you’re anything like me and you’re like, hey, what do I post on social media today? Go back through the archives, my friend.
So that’s actually what I’m doing today.
I attended a quick event about marketing to millennials and I’m actually going to go through my notes in my notebook, handwritten and talk about what pieces of these notes are still true and are reigning true. For marketing today, my own personal feelings as one of the older millennials of the millennial generation, what I’m seeing, working, what I’m seeing, not working. And I’m going to share my notes with you before we dive in.
Make sure that you are subscribed to this podcast wherever you get your podcast, hit that plus or subscribe button so that you get every single episode downloaded to your phone or tablet as soon as they come out. And I know that I’ve been teasing my webinar for a while. It is coming. It is gorgeous. I’m putting like the last finishing touches on it. I’m so excited and if you are subscribed, you’ll know exactly where to get it very, very soon. If you aren’t on my email list already, you can always go to JillianKendrick.com. And there’s going to be an opportunity there for you to put in your email address and just either subscribe to our newsletter or you can always get whatever freebie thing we’ve been working on lately, right?
Talking about millennials and what millennials want.
So my notes say number one, millennials are the on demand generation. I really have to agree with that. And I think a lot of us not only for millennials but everyone right now we are in an on demand society we’ve gotten so used to going on Netflix going on Disney Plus binge watching things. My husband and I just finished binge watching Ted Lasso. Oh, my God. I love it. And I’m gonna go watch it again because the third season is out now, I think so. I love that show. Anyway, we are absolutely 100% the on demand generation and even broader than that. We live in a world in a society now where we’re used to getting things on demand. And I’m seeing that as a marketing trend, live events aren’t quite as popular as they were five or six years ago, COVID had a lot to do with that. But the on demand world that we live in has a lot to do with that. Also, when people sign up or something, they want it immediately when people want to watch something, they want to be able to watch it now. So what can you do in your business no matter what business you have? If you’re a service based business, can you set up your website or your call center to make sure that if somebody is trying to contact you that they can get a hold of somebody as soon as possible to get the information that they need or at the very least make an appointment with you. How can they do that? How can you provide an on demand experience to cater to that lead or that person as soon as possible? And we’re the on demand generation, in terms of content. We want the thing when we want to watch it. I have videos saved on Facebook or saved on Instagram of, oh, I don’t want to miss out on that thing, but I don’t have time to watch it right now. I want to watch it when I want to, later tonight when my son is asleep or on the weekend when I have a little bit more time, everything we do is on demand. And like I said, it’s not just a generational thing. I think it’s a societal thing at this point.
My note says the millennials are a bigger generation than the baby boomers. That’s really fascinating to me. In fact, according to stat dot com, the millennials surpassed the baby boomers as the biggest generational group. A population of 72.19 million as of 2021. So a bigger generation means more people, more spending influence, more buying power. As long as millennials continue to get jobs or get good paying jobs. That’s a whole nother conversation y’all. I see you. I see those entrepreneurs living in your parents’ basement to save rent. I totally see you. I get it. But just know that over the next several decades, millennials have the biggest spending influence. We will at one point have the biggest spending capacity or spending capabilities because we’re a bigger generation that can influence voting, it can influence the market, it can influence churches, commerce, politics, social groups. And it’s really important that we know and that we’re aware of that. If you are a millennial, be aware of that, it’s also important if you’re not and you’re marketing to them or you’re selling to them.
My next note says yet most spending influence in the next several decades. That’s right.
My note says millennials are very educated consumers. I don’t entirely disagree with that. So I can tell you that my husband and I have several friends, couples friends that, when they’re like looking for a new car, or looking for, like, a new baby product or something, they’ll actually reach out to me and say, hey, Jillian, have you used this thing? Have you bought this thing? Do you like this supper? Because they know that I am a very, very educated consumer. They know that if I’m going to buy something, I have done my research on it. And I seem to have been known for in my social circle, for that sort of thing. I would agree, they’re very educated consumers. And I think that comes along with being the on demand generation, being that we are the generation that have so much access to technology to information.
And especially if you’re in the older millennial category like I am, we came up with the internet. I remember being on Facebook when Facebook was for colleges only and several students that I went to college with, we all got together and applied, filled out a Facebook application to let our teeny tiny little school get on Facebook.
You actually had to apply for your college to be on Facebook. They weren’t just letting anybody on. So, if you’re in that older millennial generation, we came up with the internet. I still have that AOL sign ingrained into my brain. I don’t know that that will ever go away. But we came up with the internet, we came up with AOL instant messenger and watching the evolution of this technology become what it is today. So I think for that reason, we are more educated consumers because we have access to technology. We understand, OK, if I’m looking for a car, I’m looking to buy a piece of software or if I want to do something in my business and I need a how to video. Well, I can go on youtube and I can look it up, maybe not everything but a lot of stuff.
My next note says: mobile device is key. I 100% agree with that. In fact, I can say from the traffic that I’m getting on websites on landing pages on sales pages in our ads, everything that we’re doing mobile is 60 to 70% or greater of the actual views on those pages and within that content. So mobile is so, so, so, so key. In fact, it’s really easy when you’re creating things, especially as a marketer running ads doing promotions, doing stuff for my business. It’s so easy to do it on a computer because that’s what I’m looking at and completely forget. Oh, yeah, I need to optimize this for mobile. I need to make sure that this image isn’t too small or too, like, gritty for a mobile user.
The next is mobile apps are a must have yes, 100% if you have the opportunity to utilize a mobile app or add a mobile app component into your business, that is an absolute game changer. I can’t speak to this because I’ve never used it. But a good friend of mine recently created a mobile app on a program called Flutter Flow. And he said it was a really easy super fast way to build a mobile app when you’re not really like a super techie person. So again, I have no affiliation with them. I can’t speak to whether it’s a good program or not. I just know somebody who used it and loved it and recommended it to me to use in our business and for our clients.
The next note I have says: millennials want to see value for their money. Now, let’s just break this down real quick and say, I don’t think this has anything to do with the millennial generation specifically. I think that everyone wants to see value for their money. I think it’s human nature. I think it just makes sense that if you buy something for the same price, but thing A comes as it is and thing B comes with a couple extra perks or a next level of value. Then doesn’t it make sense that you would buy B or want to buy B? Then buying option A. I think everyone wants to get value value for their money value for their dollar. But the difference that I see from a marketer standpoint is that millennials are more interested in having value, spending money on things that improve their quality of life that make their lives easier, that make their lives better than they are on saving a buck. I can speak from experience having grown up with my parents whose, who’s my grandparents, all of them came out of World War Two or came out of, you know, the depression and were raised to save and pinch every single penny to rub that nickel until it turns into a dime. And I don’t disagree. I don’t disagree that saving money is a great thing. But I also value my time. I recognize that time is a much more precious entity. A more precious commodity than money is. I can make more money. I can make more money any day. But I’m not going to get back time with my son. I’m not going to get back hours of my life. And so that, and I think a lot of millennials feel the same way is that, then puts into perspective, ok, I’m willing to spend more money on Instacart or doordash because it saves me time not having to go to the grocery store or not having to cook dinner and then I can do other things. Whereas some of the older generations would completely disagree with that. Would completely say, well, you’re, you’re wasting money, you’re wasting money by spending that money, money on Instacart when you could just go to the grocery store yourself. Right? And I totally get, I get both sides. But I think millennials tend to focus their money on things that improve their life, things that save them time and things that are very quantifiable in their benefits.
The next note I have says: provide value. So this is not a millennial thing. If you are in business, you are providing value. If you are in business, you are not selling, you are serving. That is business 101, one that has nothing to do with the generation in my opinion.
Next note says, respond first. So I don’t think this is generational either, but I can definitely see the side of being the on demand generation and wanting the thing that we want when we want it. I want to watch Ted Lasso right now. So I’m gonna go do that right. I need that grocery right now. So I’m gonna do Instacart whatever it is, we want it and we want it now because we are the on demand generation. So responding first just plays into that. And really, that’s just human nature anyway is, we want the thing that we want when we want it and we want it now, period. So whatever mechanism you need in your business, whether it’s an automation tool that can respond via text or email, whether it’s a call center that can answer calls at all hours of the night, whatever that might look like for you and for your business, there should definitely be mechanisms where you can respond first.
I tell this story all the time. My team is probably sick of hearing me tell this story, but I will continue to tell this because it’s a great story. So a few years ago, it was like eight or nine pm on a Saturday night, we had our toilet flood, it was terrible. It was going onto the carpet. It was really bad. So of course, I get on Google and I start looking up plumbers or even like emergency plumbers in my local area. And the big key that I noticed as a marketer because I’m looking at it from that perspective. The big thing that I noticed in my behavior when I was Googling is I didn’t care who had been in business the longest, I didn’t care who was the most reputable. I didn’t care who had the best training. I didn’t care who had the best reviews. I didn’t care about any of that stuff when I needed a plumber at eight PM.
On a Saturday night, I paid the person who answered the phone first and said, yes, I’ll be there in 30 minutes. That’s who got my money. That’s who got my business. It wasn’t the most professional. It wasn’t the best reviewed. It wasn’t the closest, it wasn’t the longest in business. It wasn’t the family. It was, I don’t, I couldn’t even tell you to this day who it was, but that’s who got my money. It was the person who answered the phone first and said, yes, I’ll be there right now. That’s where my money went. But even when you’re in a non-emergency situation, I think it’s human nature and human nature has, you know, that asterisks of selfishness, we want the thing that we want when we want it and like far assault, we want it now. So whatever mechanism you can do in your business, automation, call center, something like that, make sure that you have those pieces in place. If you don’t, let’s talk, let’s have a conversation about it.
And then my next note underneath: respond first says, you know, even like, hey, I saw this and I’ll get back to you on X Y Z day or in a few hours or something. This isn’t bad. I think in the on demand world, in the on being in the on demand generation, I think we need to take it a big, big step further and have that automation in place or have that person in place to answer the phone when the leads come in. But if you can’t do that, even setting up an auto responder in your support email or on your email address that just says, hey, I got your email and I’ll get back to it within 24 hours. Something like that isn’t a bad idea. It’s not a bad step. But I think given the technology, given what we can do today, I think the auto responder is a very small step and there’s so much more that we can do beyond that. Optimizing for mobile. We talked about that.
Millennials want high touch. That’s interesting. So let’s talk about that a little bit. I think that millennials and I could be wrong. Maybe this is an introvert, extrovert thing. I’m just speaking from my own experience. But I think that millennials and really anyone in any generation. But if we’re talking about millennials specifically, I think millennials want high touch when they want it. Millennials want high touch dot dot dot when they’re ready for it. And this is why when you have a website, when you market online, when you’re doing the online thing, you need to be capturing the people that are ready. Those plumber example, people, the people that are ready that have the emergency or that need your service and are like, here’s my credit card, take my money, fix my thing. Ok. Job done. You want those customers? But then you also want the customers that need to have more of a conversation or that need to be educated a little bit about who you are, what the process is or how you go about things or even understanding that they have a problem in the first place. Right.
There’s a few schools of thought when it comes to the marketing that you do first is if the person isn’t even aware that they have a problem, your marketing needs to speak to educating them about the problem. Second school, if they are aware that they have a problem, your marketing needs to speak, speak to the problem and the pain points of the problem and how your product or service can solve it. If they are aware of your product or service, your marketing needs to talk to the benefits or the transformation of what your product or service can do to resolve that problem. If they know all of those three things, then your marketing needs to speak more to their inability to take action. Those are the four layers of marketing. It’s not, it’s really, really complicated, but it’s not, not all that complicated. So in terms of millennials wanting high touch, I would say yes, millennials want high touch dot dot dot When they’re ready for it, when they want it, when they demand that high touch exists, I can definitely say having like had a baby planned a wedding, done big things in my life, run a business, gone through working with service providers and content creators and all of these different things. There are moments when I don’t want to talk to him anybody. I don’t want to be bombarded with four phone calls about a car that I’m not ready to buy. I just want to know more information about that car or I just want to see, like a, visual tour of what that car looks like.
I’m not ready to talk to somebody or maybe I’m thinking about taking a vacation and so I can Google and look up what are things to do for families in Boston or in Yosemite or wherever we’re going to take vacation. Both of those are on the table by the way. But I want to start looking up and educating myself, and, and becoming aware of what’s available so that I can make decisions. I as a consumer or I as a lead at that point in the purchasing journey or in the decision making process. I am not ready and not educated enough to make the decision that yes, we’re going to go to this place for our vacation or yes, we’re gonna buy that car. I need more information. I need to be educated a bit more. So I think yes, millennials want high touch when they’re ready for it, when they’re ready to buy, when they hit that point in the buying or selling journey. Yes.
The next note says, millennials are not frugal, they’re educated. I would agree with that. I would agree that like I had said before, my generation and me included, I’m much more interested in. Ok. If I’m going to spend this money, what’s the value that I’m getting for this money? I’m much more interested in that than like what is the final price? Sure, price is important. Price is a big factor. I won’t disagree with that, but I want to know, what am I getting for that dollar?
What am I getting for that price? And then the note says, don’t give them discounts, give them more value for what they’re paying. Yes, 100%. And there’s ways in terms of marketing and positioning that you can do a little bit of both, especially if somebody’s on the fence and you want to kind of push them over the edge or, or help them, help them to make that buying decision. There are definitely ways that you can position more value along with a discount along with other things that make it more enticing and make them ready to buy.
The next note I have says: put pricing on your website now a few years ago, I might have agreed with this at this point. I think it really depends on your business.
It depends on where you’re at in business and what are you selling. If we’re back to the plumber example, I would say you could put things like, what do you charge for, you know, an emergency service fee or this or that? Possibly. But sometimes you want to get somebody on the phone or you want to have that educational process or you really want to speak to the pain points and get a full understanding of their situation before you just lay down the price. So I don’t necessarily know that you should have pricing on your website. I think it depends, it depends on your business. It depends on the education process. It depends on what you’re selling. Are you selling a service? Are you selling a product? Is your product more commoditized? Is it not? I think it depends on a lot of things.
But my, the next note, I have says: millennials want info and they want to learn. Yes, 100%.
The next note I have says, don’t be afraid of text message and agree with them, agree with the consumer or your millennial consumer on the best communication method completely. You’ll see this with lots of different industries now, especially now that there’s so much technology out there. And a lot of people have finally gotten on the mobile bandwagon that they understand how powerful mobile is. I communicate with our realtor through text message almost 100%. I was communicating back and forth with a car dealer when we were going to buy our first family car back a couple of years ago and again, until I was ready to, to get on the phone and have that conversation. So I think understanding who your audience is, whether they’re millennials, baby boomers, Gen-X, somebody else or even just as a personal preference, if somebody is more introverted, more extroverted, if they’re at the beginning of the buying process or the decision making process, and maybe they want a bit more education and they’re not ready yet to have those conversations figure out what the best form of communication for them and for that individual is and then communicate with them using those methods. And again, allow for that technology, have mechanisms in place. And if you don’t have this, let’s have a conversation so that you can easily do text messaging and you can easily do email and you have a phone number that people can call. I have a software that I love working in that can do all of those things if you want to know more about it, email me and then the last part of my notes really, I think applies to just about anybody. Not, not only millennials, communicate as brief as possible. I would agree somewhat to that, that you don’t have to write long form copy in order to get your message across. I can say that if you send me an email and it’s just really long, all text, I’m probably not going to read it. So being brief and even just being visual and again, that could just be me because I am a very visual sort of person. And if I see a big of wall of text, that’s pretty much a brick wall of me looking at that email saying I’m not going to read that. But that could just be me. Maybe that’s not a millennial thing, but communicate briefly is a big one. Millennials want to see more personalized offers from a business perspective. And I would agree with that, but I don’t think that that’s only millennials. I think any person, whatever stage of life that you’re in, whether you are a financial advisor, marketing to baby boomers who are in retirement, preparing for retirement are in the throes of retirement and don’t know how to manage their money if you can communicate to them in a very personalized way. Everybody wants that, everyone. This is human nature. You guys marketing, write this down, put this on a sticky note and put it where you can see it every single day.
Marketing equals human nature. Literally, that’s it.
There’s the secret sauce, there’s the game changer. People want to see personalized offers. People want to see copy and text and communication and, and creative and, and images that resonate with them that look like them that are representative of them. Whether it’s skin color, race, gender, age, any other demographic, you can name that I’m now drawing a blank on people, want to see themselves in what you’re selling. People want to be recognized for their humanity, whether you agree with their personal choices or not. And I think making offers that are personalized based on their demographics or based on their actions that they’ve taken with you or based on where they are in that buying journey. That’s how you connect with people. That’s how you have shared experiences. That’s how they begin to know, like, and trust you. This is not a millennial thing. This is human in nature. I’m a business owner. I see you. I recognize where you’re at. I understand your pain or I feel it too or I have felt it before. Here’s how I can help you not feel that pain anymore or get away from pain or move towards a benefit or pleasure. Come with me on this journey. Here’s why I know what I know. That’s marketing personalized offers 100% giving them a reason to respond to you. This, this is juicy. OK? This is gonna be my last one and I think I need to do part two of this maybe because I got more. I got some more notes y’all but give them a reason to respond to you. So this is a great one.
It drives me nuts when I see marketing that is open ended when someone is left to their own devices without urgency, without an immediate need, without inspiration or just cause they will make no decision. And this is not about manipulating people. This is not about convincing someone. I genuinely believe selling is serving and serving. Someone is not about convincing or forcing them to make a decision. Selling and serving is about helping them along that decision making process, helping them to recognize things that they don’t see within themselves. And when we can create calls to action, whether it’s in our ads in our marketing, in our emails and our text messages and write any of that, what we can create calls to action that are very specific, very targeted. Very, hey, this is the next step. You wanna work with me? This is how to do it. Call this number, email me, fill out this form, submit this thing, whatever that looks like for you. Text yes to 00000, whatever that looks like for you and for your business. The best thing that you can do is to make personalized offers to your audience when they need them with very specific calls to action where the answer is yes, I want that thing and I’m going to take that action or no, I’m not ready yet or no. The answer is no and I’m not going to do it. There should not be any other questions, there should not be any other options.
We’re going to go through an exercise. Ok, let’s say that you and I are very long old dear friends and I find out that you’re sick and I really feel for you. I’m really upset because, I, I love you. I care about you and I want to know how I can help you. I want to reach out and do something for you to help because I, I feel for you if I reach out when you’re sick and maybe you’re going through treatment or you’re dealing with something. If I reach out and say, hey, if you need anything, let me know. That’s a very sweet gesture, but it’s also open ended and vague as fudge. But if I reach out to you and I say, hey, I’m going to the grocery store tonight. Let me know what you need or hey, I’m gonna bring you dinner on Wednesday night. How does Mexican sound? Those are really, really specific calls to action.
Those are really specific. Hey, let me do this for you. Whereas, if you need anything, just let me know that leaves it up to the other person to then decide when they need something what they need and then ask for help, which third only to like public speaking and death asking for help according to human beings is like one of the scariest things that you could possibly do. So you’re not actually helping anybody by leaving an open ended. Hey, let me help you. But if you say, hey, I’m bringing you dinner on Wednesday night, how’s Mexican or I’m going to the grocery store tomorrow. Do you need milk? That is a really specific ask.
And it’s a specific call to action that someone even undergoing the worst of circumstances could probably answer that question.
But leaving it open ended, whether you’re a friend or you’re a business owner, leaving anything open ended is a very bad idea.
So those are my notes for marketing to millennials. I have so many more notes about this and this is actually a really fun exercise for me to go back into those archives and look at events that I’ve attended, things that I’ve written down notes that I have taken about marketing prior to, to today. So I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Momentum Marketing podcast. Thank you so much for being here and spending time and listening to this today. If listening to this has brought you any value, improved your life or given you insights on how to build momentum in your own business, then please share it with a friend and I’ll see you on the next episode.
The Momentum Marketing Podcast
By Jillian Kendrick
Episode: #10
Topic: Marketing to Millennials
Contact: hello@jilliankendrick.com
Follow IG: instagram.com/automatedmama
