How to Build an Online Presence Appealing to Millennials
You could be spending millions on marketing, but if you don’t speak to your target audience, you’re wasting it all.
And let’s face it: millennials are a demanding audience.
They have been growing up to tech innovation eruption.
If you’re not online, they won’t ever care about your existence.
If you have a poor online presence, they won’t take you seriously.
If you’re pushing solely on advertising and cold sales… Boy, you’re done.
Blacklisted. For good.
So, what makes this audience so special?
See, millennials love independence that the internet provides for them.
They want to be able to find all information they need online.
Fast and easy. A click away.
But when it comes to online presence, to be or not to be is no longer the question.
The question is HOW.
Here are 5 crucial pillars to building an online presence appealing to millennials:
- Provide valuable content
- When you’re online — be where they are
- Use visuals
- Make your website is intuitive enough to allow the user to complete the action
- Humanise your presence
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Provide valuable content
Millennials check their phone more than 157 times a day. (Yes, you read that right.) Which means they see tons of stuff online every single day.
But it also means that they forget most of it.
And it completely makes sense — it’s how the human brain works:
You soak millions of pieces of information, your brain filters it, and it remembers only what’s valuable to them.
To be remembered, you must provide value.
You must stand out.
And you can do that only by creating valuable content.
Start with the blog.
And when you do, remember — your blog is not about you or your company. Your blog should be all about your audience and their problems and concerns.
If your blog serves for your company updates, you’re not providing value. It’s really nice you want to share with the world you got a new team member, but what’s in it for your buyer?
On the other hand, if you’re, for example, offering online courses, topics like ‘How to fit in online courses into your already packed schedule’ or ‘How to get educated without stepping a foot in the classroom’ are likely to draw the right audience to your website.
Your blog reader can easily convert to a lead if you play your cards wisely.
Leverage the value you provide by creating free gated content (ebooks, guides, checklists…) that support and/or elaborate your blog posts, and make them easily visible, accessible, and downloadable on relevant post pages.
To download, they’ll need to share their email address, and that’s how they convert.
There you have it: instead of chasing them all over, your audience will be coming to you.
2. Be where they are
Now that you’ve got the content, you need to make sure that content will reach your audience.
That is why serious social media presence is crucial to getting things rolling.
Explore your audience, analyse them, collect data.
Source: DCInno
Are they mostly on Facebook? Are they addicted to Twitter? Do they spend time on LinkedIn? Then that’s where you need to be.
It’s recommended you take on a few channels instead of only one, but you’ll have to do it strategically.
Share your valuable content across your social channels to bring millennials to your website without being aggressive or pushy.
Remember: they’re coming to you because you provide value.
Explore the best times to post. Measure engagement. Collect data. Make conclusions. Test another approach. Repeat.
3. Use Visuals
If you’re an active Facebook user, you’ve noticed by far that your feed is bursting with visuals.
Videos, photos, GIF files, videos, videos, videos…
Facebook has even enabled posting your status update in the form of a photo, because — who reads the plain text anymore?
Source: Buffer
Tools such as Canva, PicMonkey, Viewbix, etc. can help you easily create valuable visuals.
You’re probably thinking — it’s too much content to create. Blogs, offers, now visuals…
It’s way easier than you think. For example:
You recently published a blog post ‘10 ways to do something’. You’ll be able to split it into the three videos that explain 3 ways to.
Use graphics. Do podcasts. Be playful.
4. Make sure your website is intuitive
Many businesses make a crucial mistake when thinking of their website in terms of mere visual — without questioning its functionality.
Your website’s main function is to guide your visitors through their buyer’s journey.
In order to achieve that, your website must be intuitive. Meaning: it must reflect the way your buyer persona thinks and reacts, provide all information they may need and answer all their pain points, and make all that information easily accessible.
Make sure each page needs to be focused around enticing the user to commit one action only — if you provide them with the wide choice on one page, they’ll get lost in consideration and leave without completing any actions.
5. Humanise Your Online Presence
People love working with people!
Your prospects need to know that behind that logo profile page there is a committed, hardworking team of actual human beings who everyday try to understand them and create the best possible solutions for their problems.
That is how they truly connect with your brand.
You can achieve this by including Behind-The-Scenes content in your social media plan: post pictures from the office, team building events — whatever depicts your company culture in your own unique way.
Example of BTS content on Instagram; Source: SnoutSchool
If you’re ready to go one step further, create video content yourself — invite your employees to join as well, and that way you’ll achieve direct interaction with your audience. Your video content can be educational, informative, you can do monthly webinars, create a YouTube channel, and use your video content for lead generation purposes.
To conclude…
Remember, not all millennials are the same. Being millennial is only one of numerous characteristics of your buyer persona. Every step you make must be synchronised with your persona’s needs and goals and in line with their journey.
Test your ideas and see what works and what needs tweaks, track your website performance and optimise accordingly, test how readers engage with your content, nurture your leads.
And don’t desperately quit if you don’t see results the very first moment — building a solid foundation takes time, but that’s what your business’ future will always rely on.
Need clues to building your online presence? Get on a free 30 minute chat with us — we’ll provide you with tips and hacks that you’ll be able to implement immediately to see results!
