Research

Six Writing Styles That Millennials Can’t Ignore

Millennials are the fastest growing consumer group in the world. In 2020, 30% of all retail sales will be geared towards millennials. Marketing to millennials is a different ball game compared to the era of Gen X and Boomers. If you are trying to convince this younger generation to buy your products or use your service, then you need to understand how they think and process information. This article will focus on common trends and traits of millennials and how to incorporate them into marketing and writing strategies targeted towards millennials.

Use a Conversational Tone

Ditch the Queens English and Elizabethan era approach. Millennials are pretty much informal and tend to dislike articles written in “business parlance”. Loosen up a bit, keep it down to earth. That way you’ll be able to pass the message across without it becoming too watered down. You can also make reference to certain elements like trending games, music, movies or TV shows. This tells millennials you are able to connect with them and share similar interests.

Utilize Brand Evangelists

Using a popular celebrity or social media personality can help you capture the attention of millennials. These personalities are brand advocates who reinforce key elements and attributes of the brand. Millennials also have a high potential for becoming brand advocates.

With most people having access to the internet and with a presence on social media sites, millennials normally post reviews or updates about products or services they have used. This information is available on the individual’s social media sites for friends, family and information seekers to access. According to research by Social Chorus, 95 percent of millennials in the US state their friends as their most credible source of product information when it comes to making a purchasing decision.

Be Brief

Millennials were raised on the internet and are used to consuming content in a few minutes or even seconds. With a short attention span, they can easily get disinterested if a write up becomes too lengthy or wordy. When writing for millennials be sure your content is brief and straight to the point.

You can leverage some letter samples that meet this criterion and are also available for free online. On the other hand, if the material requires lengthy analysis consider making use of visuals via videos or podcasts.

Mix and Match

With a short attention span, millennials are quick to get bored of the same thing day in day out. To capture their attention when writing is sure to have a mix of text, multimedia, graphics, infographics, and audio. Including images of blog posts and social media posts will also boost your message acceptance rates.

You can also incorporate memes into your style of communication and make use of “millennial lingo”. Urban Dictionary is a good resource to learn trendy words and slangs currently used by millennials.

Be Authentic

Millennials are all about trust, honesty, and transparency. They are most likely to engage with companies who also share the same values with them. You should ensure that all claims made about your business and products are true and can be backed with facts. It only takes one second or even less for a millennial to whip out their phone and do some fact checking via Google.

Any bogus claims can cause social media backlash and backfire on your company. Millennials take betrayal badly and will go to the lengths and breadths of social media to ensure the company’s name and reputation is dragged through the mud. When writing for millennials, remember to keep your tone and conversations straightforward.

Go Digital

Millennials are the digital generation and are easily influenced by digital marketing and online activities. They make use of mobile devices, websites and social media sites like Facebook and Instagram to gather information about a product and on-going promotional activities.

Digital influences significantly affect their purchasing decisions. According to a recent infographic by BigCommerce, 67% of millennials shop online. With this information in mind, the marketing strategy for millennials should mostly be through targeted online campaigns and social media interactions.

Writing for millennials requires an understanding of their needs, traits, trends, and habits. To be able to effectively engage this unique target audience you need to recognize that they are different from the previous generations and you should be willing to incorporate these differences and changes into your marketing strategy.

by: Amit Mukherjee

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