Take a look at your daily routines now and try to imagine your life without the internet; without the touch of a screen and having the world at your fingertips. Must be hard to do so, especially for Generation Z. It is the largest demographic grouping, and half of them have never known life without the internet and the comfort of their touch screens.
As someone who runs a business, you must be well aware that Gen Z is the new market. They are surrounded by technology, and that only means that you will need to switch up your marketing tactics to best cater to their wants and needs if you desire to appeal your brand to them. To do that, you must first know who the people who make up Gen Z are and how you can utilise their desires for your own.
What is Gen Z?
Anyone born between 1997 and 2016 is considered to be Gen Z despite lacking an actual, definitive end date for this particular grouping. They might appear similar to millennials at times, but there are subtle differences, and we must not overlook them.
Gen Z takes the world as it is and wants to improve it according to what they would like it to be. Details like these indicate the influence Gen Z will have in the near future and the impact they might have on the world that we live in now, so brands looking to appeal to this generation will have to be on the same page as them. If you want them to listen to you and remember your brand name, then your business too will need to be socially and environmentally responsible.
This relationship you are going to build is more complex because you’re marketing to a younger audience who are yet to fully enter the workforce.
Here we will share with you a few ways to market to Gen Z that might just make your brand stand out to them.
3 Best Marketing Tactics for Gen Z
You are not capable of marketing to a whole generation with a single message. Besides the inherent stereotyping, it is safer to survey your audience before committing and carrying out a certain campaign. Though Gen Z has become brand enthusiasts due to their exposure to constantly developing technology, it doesn’t mean that they stay loyal to a single brand for long. If you are slow to engage with them or break your promises, you will find them switching to your competitors before you can even blink.
This is why you need the right practices in your marketing to ensure the success of your appeals to a Gen Z audience. Adapt to how this generation consumes content and figure out their ideological differences, then only will you be ready to market your brand to them successfully.
1. Create Compelling Content and Engage with Your Audience
If your content doesn’t align with their interests, they’re most likely to scroll past it and deprive your brand of the opportunity to catch their attention. Find someone who they can relate to; someone who shares the same beliefs as them, and feature them in your marketing campaigns. When your Gen Z audience can resonate with the people featured in your ads and campaigns, they are more likely to pay attention and allow you to achieve better results. If you attempt a direct sale while including people who are not relatable, then you just might not succeed.
Take myBurgerLab, for example. If you browse through their Instagram account, you will be able to see the kind of content that they serve to catch the eyes of Gen Z. With nearly 60k followers, there’s no doubt that they are making use of their large audience in order to maintain their loyalty and appeal to them in various ways.
myBurgerLab produces content in the forms of Reels, memes, and even hilarious comic strips! To appeal to Gen Z, you must know what the current trend is, and go with the flow. If Squid Game is currently drawing in crowds, then use the Netflix show as memes related to your business and products in order to make your audience laugh and relate to your content. If you get them smiling, you know you have them in your pocket.
If you want to use a popular show on a larger scale, take a look at the Squid Game-themed activation hosted by Sunway Pyramid! By having several employees dress up as the guards from the show and placing a replica of the giant Red Light Green Light doll for visitors to explore and take pictures with, the mall received a 10% increase in footfall in a day. When the visitors post about this event on their social media with the custom hashtags provided, the word gets out, and more people are drawn to visit.
2. Prioritise Social Media
It is no secret that this generation has been using social media from a very young age. Even at the age of 12, most of them already have their own social media accounts on different platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Hence the daily social media usage among Gen Z is high, just like millennials.
For instance, the usage of TikTok in 2020 has skyrocketed with numerous viral content created by an audience of 18 to 25 year-olds. With TikTok now allowing videos longer than 60 seconds to be uploaded, more and more creative content has been produced by people of all ages, and they are not stopping anytime soon.
So if you want your brand to be known, then you must survey the most promising platforms and use a marketing approach that fits the current trend. Some big names that have jumped on the TikTok bandwagon are Pepsi, Nike, and Universal Pictures. You can find their ads appearing on a user’s For You Page between other videos, and if the content is compelling enough, then the user just might convert into a paying customer.
There are various other platforms for social media besides TikTok, so you must first fathom the ones that would benefit your brand the most. Look up the apps and channels that are commonly used by the audience and observe the way they consume the content in order for you to implement it on your own campaigns. For instance, even though Facebook is still relevant, it is no longer popular among the newer generation.
A few of the social media platforms most used by Gen Z can be seen below:
- TikTok
- Snapchat
- Twitch
These apps can be reached using organic, social, or paid social channels.
3. Create Videos. Lots of Videos.
Nowadays, entertainment can be accessed anywhere, and Gen Z users love using YouTube. It is the most frequently used platform when it comes to consuming video content, and YouTube is used more for this purpose than Netflix. Though the latter application has films and television shows, the former offers a vast amount of videos that can cater to every individual’s interests.
When a user wants to unwind, whether from studying or from work, YouTube is the ultimate destination. So, just like TikTok, it can benefit your brand if you observe the kind of videos your competitors are producing alongside the ones that your target audience is consuming.
If you want to connect with Gen Z, then you should craft entertaining video content that would help them escape the stresses of daily life in order to have them resonate with your brand. Curate relatable content in a way that catches their attention and makes them remember your brand, and might just have them in your grasp.
Conclusion
A marketer who wants to connect with a Gen Z audience must learn to tailor their content to the desires of said audience. After all, this generation consists of tech-savvy consumers, and your brand might need to up its game in this court. Adapt your content strategies to the ones that best fit a Gen Z audience and be as authentic as possible even when you’re following a trend for you to be able to catch their attention.
This is a battle of attention, and you want them to engage with your content, so you need a strategy that can cut through the clutter. Get in touch with us, Digitally.Asia, as we are one of Malaysia’s best digital marketing agencies and are more than happy to assist you towards achieving your business goals.
If you are interested in the world of social media and online influence, learn more about the future and growth that you can experience and make the most out of here.