5 Tips Targeting Millennials with Car Marketing
Not too long ago, Millennials were seen as the harbingers of doom for the entire automotive industry. Between the rise of ride sharing coupled with crippling student debt it left many Millennials proclaiming their distain for purchasing cars. However these prophecies never came to fruition and fell rather short. In fact, the Millennial car buying sector has grown dramatically and is actually becoming one of the biggest opportunities for car dealerships to flourish.
In 2016, only 3 years ago 29% of car purchases were made by Millennials. By the end of 2020 this is projected to increase to 40%. This makes the Millennial segment one of the fastest growing. As Millennials leave college, start getting jobs, buying houses and raising families, their vehicle purchasing is driven by their needs opposed to their wants. They require new vehicles that can fit their new lives and their growing family sizes, making this no better time than to invest into some Millennial marketing. However this target still consists of digital natives with expectations for online interaction that has been set by the practices of the larger digital retail giants. So without further delay here are some tips for reaching Millennials.
Reviews, Testimonials, and Social Engagement
What Millennial may lack in experience they certainly make up for through their utilisation of vast social networks and online search to find and collate knowledge based on other peoples experiences. It not really surprising that 73% of Millennials said that they thought it was important to read other customer opinions pre purchase. Millennials tend to feel much more comfortable relying on a type of crowd-sourced experience. Information from many different sources that allows them to approximate what they can expect when making a purchase. All of these factors now apply to their purchase decision making process. 84% say that user generated content does have an impact on their purchasing decision, and they are 247% more likely to be swayed by social media or blogs. It could just be reading reviews, looking at friend’s photos of their card, or maybe it’s a Youtuber giving a walk-through of the car, It really doesn’t matter, ultimately its about user generated content seeming like a good source of unbiased information, and unbiased authentic information is what us Millennials want.
A large part of your car marketing activities that are targeting a Millennial audience should really be rooted in their desire to share experiences. In fact, over 70% felt responsible for sharing feedback with a business regardless of a negative or positive experience. Tap into this by implementing some initiatives that will help to promote and drive testimonial and review gathering.
Don’t Forget Service
Millennials are actually pretty good customers when it comes to servicing vehicles. As you could probably imagine this can be a blessing wen it comes to your car marketing. The Millennial bracket now accounts for 25% of all customers who service vehicles. And as millennials continue to increase their households’ size and begin to purchase more and more vehicles, this percentage is no doubt going to rise.
70% of Millennials said that they would be willing to pay more for a good quality vehicle service. This would suggest that any communications highlighting service quality is likely to have a positive effect. This generation are also much more likely to own a vehicle with an extended warranty which also means they are already more likely to uses their main dealership for any vehicle servicing. So, if you’re looking to drive more business to your service department remember to give a good amount of your attention to marketing to Millennials. The simplest way to incorporate this would be just to offer coupons or special offers for your service department on media that is consumed by Millennials.
Market In the Right Places
Millennial’s definitely have a different relationship with advertising, maybe its because of our recession based coming of age, our digital lifestyles or maybe just a shift in cultural paradigms. Whatever it is its pretty evident that Millennials have a different relationship with advertising than past generations. With all the noise it can be hard to get Millennial attention. Older generations might change the channel when the ad break comes on, but Millennials already have their phones whipped out ready to distract them from those important brand communications. This focus switching can be pretty discouraging, but it can also provide the perfect opportunity for car dealerships to take a better approach to their marketing efforts.
The most successful car marketing targeting Millennials requires an omnichannel approach. Between the scattered online presence and the device driven multitasking, executing a cohesive and consistent message across many platforms is the key.
In addition to all of that, Millennials genuinely believe the internet is 4 times better than the TV or newspaper. The key here is to look for the right online channels that they would typically use for car shopping or even finding car related information. Millennials can actually be more receptive to advertising than passed generations but that is only if the content they are looking to access is free. It is commonly understood that if you want to access good quality but free content, the producers will need to monetise it in some way to be able to continue. This can take its form in an un-skippable Youtube pre-roll as many people take advantage of this option on a daily basis. The other thing would be to find a car based community website like this for instance that you may be able to advertise directly on in the from of a side banner or some form of static advertisement banner.
Mobile-Focus
Its practically 2020. Everyone is on their phones. Even Gran is rocking an iphone these days. So if your hunting Millennials your going to need to be mobile. This is the generation that grew with the technology of today. Every interaction is expected to be seamless and possible anytime and anywhere. 65% of Millennials research car dealerships on their phone before going to any. So make sure anything that you are creating is mobile friendly.
If you want to know how we can help you target Millenials get in touch
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