Marketing Strategies for Engaging the Digital Native Gen Z Audience
In an earlier blog post, we looked at millennial consumers and how marketers can reach them. In this post we focus on Gen Z, the generation after millennials, usually defined as people who were born between 1995 to 2010 or who are 20 or younger today. This generation doesn’t know the world without access to the internet and whilst they’re still young, for brands targeting consumers in their late teens and early 20s they could well prove to be customers for life. This is also a diverse generation, made up of individuals who place great importance on expressing their unique identities. Gen Z wants to be heard and be part of the conversation, perhaps even more than their Millennial predecessors.
Read on to find out which key characteristics of Gen Zers brands should pay special attention to in their marketing efforts.
1. True Digital Natives
Gen Zers are digital natives, having been exposed to the internet and social networks from the start. They’re more connected to the digital world than any generation before them and have almost separate online and offline identities – 45% of teens today say they are online almost constantly. They’re Social Media savvy and 59% more likely than other generations to connect with brands they like on social media. Their purchasing decisions are also hugely impacted by the number of “likes” products and services have received on social channels and by the opinions of influencers. Therefore, brands should should invest in building engaging social media profiles and highly personalised marketing messaging to capture the attention of late-teens and young adults. Young people are quick to move to the latest, popular channel if the content no longer serves them.
2. Expressing Individuality and Uniqueness
For Gen Zers, expressing their individual identity is vitally important. They look for more personalised products and are willing to pay a premium for that. Additionally, Gen Z is 24% more likely than Baby Boomers and Gen X to choose a digital world where their needs can be predicted by websites and apps over a world where a person is anonymous and targeted with generic messaging. According to research conducted recently by Salesforce, 67% of Gen Z consumers expect offers to be personalised. Highly personalised marketing strategies are beneficial to both to the customer and the brand: it will take less effort on the consumers’ part to find the right products and services and brands save resources by using more precise targeting.
3. Impulsive Consumers
Gen Zers want to be able to buy products and services whenever and wherever it works for them and are even more likely to purchase online than Millennials. They are interested in trying services that make shopping even easier and faster, for instance 73% are currently using or can’t wait to try voice-activated ordering and 70% of Gen Zers can’t wait to use or are willing to try buying on social media in the future. Moreover, these young shoppers are impulsive by nature and look for constant excitement. Compared to Millennials, nearly 60% more Gen Zs said they had purchased something online just because they wanted to buy or they randomly saw something they liked.
4. Engaging with New Formats: Dynamic Instagram Stories
Brands should seek to push new, in-the-moment marketing content through relevant social media channels to keep the Gen Z audience engaged and loyal. For teens the most popular platforms are now YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat. Major global brands are using Spirable’s self-serve platform to create personalised video ads for social media, such as Dynamic Shoppable Instagram Stories, driven by consumer browsing behaviour and contextual data. The Spirable platform is capable of creating and updating thousands of unique video ads, ensuring video content on Instagram Stories is always fresh and relevant for audiences.