Video Marketing and Millennials: Learning to Connect with a Younger Generation

We talk a lot about how video marketing is all about knowing your target audience and learning how you can create content that speaks to them personally and catches their interests. In our video marketing and millennials guide, we’re talking about how you can connect with an entire (younger) generation with your video content, by creating content that specifically targets this age group. And while it might seem like an easy enough approach, you’ll quickly see that video marketing and millennials is anything but “simple.”

For a generation that has grown up with tablets, phones, computers, video games, and laptops at their fingertips nearly 24/7 from birth, creating content that appeals to millennials can be particularly challenging. To say that the competition is fierce would be an understatement. With more than 85% of the internet made up of video content, and an estimated 48% of U.S. Millennials online “almost constantly” according to a recent study, finding ways to interact & entertain this age group will certainly present a number of challenges even to the most avid content creators.

Unlike any other generation thus far, Millennials only know a world that is full of digitalization and technology. They don’t know payphones and landlines, they’ve never faced a Christmas with catalogs to choose the perfect gifts from, and they’ll never understand what life was like before the internet. What they know is information is literally just a few clicks away, entertainment is always available, and no matter what style or type of content they prefer, it can be found – somewhere, if they’re willing to try hard enough.

While life is certainly different for this age group, Millennials can teach us a thing or two about how we’re promoting our video content. In fact, since video marketing and millennials technically go hand in hand, we might as well take what we can from this age group and learn a thing or two about how we approach digital content in order to resonate with those who know digital content better than anyone!

What Can Millennials Teach Us About Video Content?

First, let’s take a step back, and think about how millennials can teach us a thing or two about digital content creation. With more than 48% of millennials spending almost every minute online throughout the day, it’s important to learn about the types of content they engage with and to find ways to produce video content that will be most appealing to them.

Millennials can teach us a lot about content, particularly video content. For instance:

• Short content is king. Millennial attention spans are shorter than ever at just 8 seconds. If you want proof that short content is king, consider the rising popularity of TikTok, YouTube shorts, and other short blasts of video content among Millennial users – you’ll quickly see that this is truly what most users are looking for right now.
• 80% of millennials consider video when they are researching a purchase decision according to a recent study by Animoto.
• Video reviews and testimonials are vital to the millennial shopping experience. In fact, millennials are 150% more likely than Baby Boomers to utilize video in their comparison shopping online.
• Topical expertise is important so choosing a niche for your video marketing is key. In fact 44% of millennials say they’re more likely to trust an expert online, so it’s important to have “product experts” including influencers push your products via video content on social media, your website, and elsewhere on the web!
• Marketing isn’t the only place that millennials are looking for video to assist in their everyday learning and decision-making. 60% of millennials would rather learn about a business through a corporate video rather than read a newsletter. And people are more likely to open emails that include video than written text alone.

Quick Video Marketing and Millennials Tips

If you want to connect with millennials, who technically make up more than 50% of the workforce, there’s no doubt about it, you must have video as a major part of your marketing plan. But what else can be done to ensure that you’re creating the right types and styles of video content to connect with this age group?

Follow these tips to perfect your video marketing and millennials will be sure to follow your brand and find interest in what you’ve got to share:

• Get personal. Millennials want to personally feel connected to the brands they purchase from. This means brands need to show some personality when producing their video content and that they should include highlights of personal staff members, corporate culture highlights, and a focus on sharing details to humanize the brand over other steps.
• Build Social Proof. Millennials want to know that the brands they connect with are socially acceptable and trustworthy. They want credibility with those they’re shopping with, and proof that they can trust the vendor or brand.
• Share videos on the go & be social. It’s important to meet your audience where they’re at and millennials are spending a lot of their time on social media. Therefore, you want to be on social media too! Make sure you’re sharing on social media and you’re doing it often.

Want to do more with video marketing and millennials, reaching the audiences that make up a huge portion of the overall market share? Give Beverly Boy Productions a call!