You may have begun including millennials in your marketing efforts, which is fantastic and will pay off. Well, now it’s time to think about the next generation: Generation Z, or those born in the mid-1990s to 2000s. Sure, they may be young now, but they’ll be your customers soon enough. Most importantly, this generation makes up 27 percent of the US population and is projected to have a staggering $44 billion in buying power!
So, while you’re not currently focused on Gen Z, it’s vital to start adjusting your marketing strategy. The following tips will help you learn about Gen Z, what they want, and how to market to them effectively.
1. Get Real and Tell Stories
As with millennials, Gen Z wants to see real people and relatable stories in marketing campaigns. They’re looking for stories about people who share the same struggles and beliefs as they do, and they can sniff out a paid actor in a nanosecond! They also want your product to provide value and meet their needs; sharing the power of flowers with this generation would be a great way to provide that value.
2. Be Quick!
You don’t have a lot of time to share your marketing message since the average attention span of a Gen Z consumer is eight seconds. So, practice creating video or photo ads that last eight seconds or less and show real people telling real stories. That may sound tough at first, but platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok make it simple to share quick videos.
3. Market with a Purpose
Social responsibility is a huge factor in marketing to Generation Z: approximately 55 percent of Gen Z customers specifically look for socially responsible brands when making purchasing decisions. If you’re using sustainably farmed flowers in your arrangements, this generation would respond positively to that message as it shows you’re taking care of the environment.
4. Create a Seamless Mobile Experience
Gen Z consumers grew up with mobile devices and make most online purchases on smartphones. That’s why it’s vital to optimize your site for mobile devices and make the checkout process as smooth as possible. Also, consider producing vertical content when taking videos, as this will play better on mobile phones.
5. Create Simple, Straightforward Emails
Social media should be the priority when marketing to Gen Z, but that doesn’t mean email doesn’t have its place. In fact, 58 percent of Gen Zers access emails many times daily. However, they can spot a hype-filled email from a mile away. So, when sending emails to Gen Z, keep your content entertaining, straightforward, and relatable. Send them coupons but keep away from pushy sales language. And, of course, make sure your emails are mobile-friendly.
6. Advertise Differently on Each Social Media Platform
As you can imagine, Generation Z is the most social media savvy of all generations. And since they live their lives online, they use each platform differently. That’s why you can’t advertise the same way across all of them: Your content choices will heavily depend on what social media platform you use.
TikTok:
Sixty percent of TikTok users are Gen Z, so if you want to reach them, this is a great way to do it. You can find many online tutorials on using TikTok, but here are a few tips: Create engaging videos. Join challenges or start them yourself. And post consistently.
Snapchat:
Seventy-one percent of Gen Z use Snapchat daily to share real-life experiences, so it’s a great way to get your viral content seen. Like TikTok, you can find tutorials on how to set up a Snapchat account and create short, entertaining, authentic, timely content.
Facebook:
Gen Z users go to Facebook to build communities and have group discussions. As an example of using Facebook to appeal to Gen Z consumers, you could create a community around the power of flowers to improve health, happiness, and overall wellness.
Instagram:
Influencers and Instagram go hand in hand, which is excellent when marketing to Gen Z because Instagram is their preferred platform to exhibit their aspirational selves. And Gen Z relates more to micro-influencers than celebrities, which makes it easier and less expensive for you to partner up with a local influencer for your Instagram posts.
Twitter:
For Gen Z, Twitter is all about news, company updates, and reviewing products and services. Twitter is the platform where you can create a solid reputation (which is extremely important to Gen Zers) by responding rapidly to positive and negative reviews or feedback and quickly resolving any issues.
YouTube:
Gen Z loves using YouTube to learn things: 80 percent are on the platform to learn more, and 68% to acquire new skills or improve themselves. So, dive into YouTube with flower benefits videos, flower arranging tutorials, and more. And remember, if you’re advertising, keep it short; shorter video ads work better than long-form video content.
We hope we’ve given you some insight into Generation Z, what they want, and what will appeal to them in your marketing. Before you know it, they’ll want to use all that buying power, so make sure you’re prepared for them!
