With a buying power of $44 billion, Generation Z has more disposable income than ever. In fact, their influence on their parents’ spending expands that figure up to an astounding $600 billion. These numbers make it clear that marketing to Gen Z is highly important. However, reaching Gen Z-ers can be challenging; they don’t pay much attention to offline businesses, and they have notoriously short attention spans.
Understand the Habits of Technology Natives
At least that’s the stereotype, but as with all stereotypes, things are not so simple underneath the surface. Every generation brings with it new kinds of challenges for marketers, and they always find ways to adapt. Evolving with trends is a huge part of what makes this industry great.
You might have heard of the “fact” that Gen Z-ers have an 8-second attention span. In reality, they simply have a better filter when it comes to information, developed through growing up surrounded by digital noise.
So, your marketing strategy will survive Gen Z, just like it survived Gen X and all the previous generations. To help you adapt, we’ve devised this guide to demystify what it means to market to a new generation.
Use Email to Reach Gen Z
Most marketers intend to increase their spending on marketing to Gen Z. So it would be a good strategy to focus on the channels that deserve the most attention.
While it is a widely-spread idea that Gen Z-ers only care about social media, they are active email users as well. Forty-five percent of teens say they are online “almost all the time.” While a huge portion of this time is spent on social media, email is still a factor. Digital marketers would do well to utilize all this time Gen Z-ers spend online to connect with them.
Email is still an effective way to engage with this generation, just like it was with the previous one. Also, as Gen Z-ers get older and enter the workforce, the number of email users will continue to increase. This information is a great place to start, but in order to improve your KPIs, you’ll need to know what to do with it. Therefore, here are a few suggestions for leveraging the information to improve your marketing efforts directly:
Offer a Preference Center
While Gen Z-ers are different from previous generations in the same ways that you would expect, they are also human. That means they have individual preferences and can’t be simply boxed into a single category. A preference center could help you ask your email subscribers how frequently, and about which topics they would like to hear from you. This will allow you to remain on-point by keeping your customers informed on the content they find most relevant.
Gen Z-ers know all about data collection and they expect brands to deliver personalized communications into their inboxes. If you use data to tailor content to fit the preferences of your customers, it will show them that your brand sees them as individuals and cares about their personal needs.
The reputation that Gen Z has for using social media only, means that their inboxes are likely to have much less competition compared to their millennial counterparts. This means there’s more space for your message to grab their attention and keep them engaged. Having a direct line of communication with your audience remains a powerful tool of engagement. Algorithms have a lot to offer, but there’s something to be said about a more personal touch in your marketing communications.
Choose the Right Channel
This generation is more likely than preceding ones to use multiple devices and communicate across multiple digital channels. However, they are not consuming or posting the same type of content on each of the platforms.
A Response Media study concluded that different social media platforms serve different purposes for Gen Z, which is no surprise. For instance, they use Facebook and Twitter for news and information; they use Snapchat to share real-life moments and Instagram to showcase their aspirations.
Choosing the proper channel to deliver each message you want to send is crucial if you want your digital marketing to yield the best possible results for your brand.
Takeaway
In order to grow as a brand and drive revenue, you need to be prepared to shift your marketing tactics and make changes to the way you operate. If you do it correctly, Gen Z-ers can bring in lots of revenue on their own, and especially as influencers on the decisions of their parents. Young people have never been more motivated and socially active, and perhaps that is an angle not enough companies are utilizing. Being socially responsible as a brand can garner you a huge following of young brand ambassadors with plenty of reaches.
The bottom line is that young people these days are not that different than the young people of the past. They want to enact some positive change in the world and build lifelong relationships with people and companies that bring value to society. If you’re capable of showing them that your company can do that, chances are they will be eager to get onboard.
