As one generation’s ages and moves into the background, another comes to the fore. The majority of businesses are now starting to analyze and tailor their brand towards this newer generation of younger people. Define Generation Z by people who were born in the mid-1990s and later. They are now reaching the age where they will be a huge part of the economy.
The idea of having a successful long-term business means that you will have not only to find customers to buy your products and services but customers that will stay with you for a long time. Most money is not made on the initial sale, but rather on the backend and from repeated business with same clients. Younger people will live for longer and will also be buyers for much longer if you manage to bring them in. But targeting the Generation Z couldn’t be as easy as it sounds. There are a lot of things you need to keep in mind if you are going to have success.
Define Generation Z Characteristics
Regarding Generation Z there is some market analysis to prove that it is the right time to refer your marketing and overall strategy to make them your next big audience.
Population. In the US, Generation Z makes up 25% of the population. In fact, they are the largest generation in the world right now, which means they are the biggest audience you have available to market to.
Year of birth. Generation z includes people born in the mid-1990s onwards. These people are still in high school and college and are in some cases only now getting out into the work.
Market share. Concerning money to spend, they aren’t usually in a position to make up a big part of the economy yet. However, in a few years’ time, they will be the dominant audience when it comes to spending.
Money spent. Generation Z already represents $143b a year in buying strength, and this will only continue to grow. The sectors receiving the biggest boost from Generation Z coming to the fore buying wise are tech, cosmetics, and online shopping. However, the vast majority of fields are seeing significant increases in funds as the influence of young people’s spending grows.
Online presence. The early Generation Z trends show that they are a lot more likely to make purchases online than through traditional stores. As more information gets compiled about their consumer behavior, this generation will become a big target for all businesses in every field. If you want to make sure you are ahead of the game, it is essential for you to get in there now.
Engaging Generation Z
Engaging Generation Z is not going to be straightforward, but there are some trends and tips that you can try out to increase their engagement with your store. Below are some very key points you need to keep in mind when you think about marketing to this audience.
New Concepts in Shopping Experience
With online shopping, home delivery, and all the other amazing innovations that have occurred over the last decade or so, the shopping experience that Generation Z is growing up with is entirely different from what the generations before used to have.
Generation Z brings different challenges to marketers, and they represent a whole new set of ideas when it comes to shopping. With Gen Zers being so big in the online shopping space, there are some factors marketers have to be wary of and focus on.
Generation Z has come to expect quick delivery times, high levels of visual marketing, and also the luxury of having a lot of evidence of the quality of the product or services. This comes through the thousands and thousands of reviews they get to sift through, as well as technologies that may let them experience a taste of the product before they buy it, like AR tools.
Social Media Power
Social media is huge in this modern age, and it is by far the biggest online marketplace available. If you want to go about engaging Generation Z, then social media is a tool you must utilize.
There is no better way to make a lot of money than by going viral on social media. Not only is social media great for getting your content in front of potential buyers, but it is incredible at allowing you to get a better idea of your audience.The stats generated by sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram can be a huge help to marketers.
Facebook, for example, has a feature within its ad campaigns called lookalike audiences. If you plan to advertise there, you can set a Facebook pixel on your site that will collect data of all the visitors who bought your products. Then when you get to Facebook and want to run an ad, you can use lookalike audiences to target the same people who were finding interest in your services on your site. This type of cross-marketing can be extremely effective.
Influencers Engagement
There have always been influencers that dictated trends and influenced the actions of the public. In the past, they were actors or performers, but nowadays anyone with a decent following on social media can become an influencer.
The fact that these influencers are so commonplace and have such a strong influence on their young audience is significant for businesses as it opens up many more avenues of promotion.
Visualization
When you want to think about what Generation Z is interested in, a big thing that has been gleaned from research over the years is the effect that visuals have.
Video has been proven to improve viewer retention, engagement significantly, and also convert better than traditional text or image-based media. There is a reason that all the major brands are putting a lot of money into their video departments, as the medium is the most effective one out there right now.
In this era of short attention spans, great visuals that grab a viewer are possibly the greatest tools a marketer can have. Businesses need eyes and to get the eyes of generation z, you need to be very visual and very appealing.
Delivery Speed
As just mentioned, attention spans across Generation Z tend to be low. This means your delivery has to be not only truthful but fast. Both in promotions and in the actual delivery of goods and services.
Life moves fast, and no one has time to waste. Being a fast mover, both in implementing your promotion plans and in involving Generation Z as buyers, will be extremely vital to the success of your business.
Mobile-Friendly Approach
Everyone has a mobile phone these days, and most people can’t go a minute without them. In fact, it’s a pretty popular stereotype that one of the standard Generation Z characteristics is that they are addicted to their phones.
While that may not necessarily be, it is true that people in this generation are very in tune with their phones. Marketing directed at phones and phone usage can be very useful if implemented correctly.
If your business is not mobile friendly and is not finely tuned to take advantage of the current mobile phone usage landscape, you should think about building a new app for your online business or creating a PWA.
Are You Ready to Get More Gen Zers as Customers?
You have now learned a lot more about how to define Generation Z. So the question is, are you ready to go out there and bring in some more customers? Remembering that they will be customers that will ideally stay with you for a long time and keep buying from you, again and again, you will focus building the right strategy to keep up gathering your new clients – Generation Z.