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Marketing to a millennial audience should be a key priority for every Professional Services firm. This is true regardless of whether Gen Y – born between the early 1980s and the mid 1990s – is your target market, or beyond it. The reason is that, more and more, millennials are assuming roles at B2B companies where they influence purchasing decisions. In 2014, nearly half of all B2B researchers influencing deals of $10, 000 USD or more were millennials, according to this report from Google. This figure is up 70% since 2012, which indicates a changing tide for B2B marketers.

Understanding what influences millennials when they make purchasing decisions and adjusting your marketing strategy accordingly will ensure that your firm isn’t missing sales opportunities to vendors deemed ‘a better fit’ for their company by Gen Y researchers.

How Professional Services Firms can Market Themselves to Millennials

Know How Millennials Differ from Their Older Colleagues

There are many workplace stereotypes that exist about millennials; they’re lazy, they’re technologically addicted, they’re job hoppers, they lack initiative and need hand-holding on projects, and so on. Although several of these claims are founded on reasonable observations – that millennials are generally more technologically savvy than their older colleagues, for instance – these stereotypes tend to be taken to unfair extremes. Extrapolating from Gen Y’s comparatively high usage of tech products that they are digitally ‘addicted’ and dismissing them as such is a damaging stance for employers to take because it hurts sales. Here’s why.

Millennials grew up in a digital Renaissance which saw them using a wide array of devices in their youth. This familiarity from a young age partially explains why they are generally more competent at adapting to new technologies than their older colleagues. However, the ‘social’ facet of technology is an equally significant explanatory factor. To put it bluntly, a craving for social validation has played a major role in millennials’ mastery of tech. And regardless of whether this social behaviour is empathised with by older colleagues or not, the fact of the matter is that millennials have a long history of using technology and continue to use their smartphones, tablets and laptops interchangeably each day. This behaviour has important practical implications for Professional Services firms.

With millennials’ varied use of devices comes a natural preference towards companies that offer a seamless customer experience across all channels. This is why B2C companies have made significant, targeted efforts over the past few years to provide seamless omnichannel customer experiences. In an Executive Report released by IBM in 2014, it was found that millennials’ high standards for consumer brands are impacting their expectations for B2B companies and influencing their purchasing decisions.

The Importance of a Great Omnichannel Experience

According to the report, when researching B2B vendors the first priority for millennial researchers is the ease of doing business. In practical terms, this amounts to vendors being easily contactable via social media and having live chat and/or instant messaging features to answer any initial questions prospects have about the firm’s products and services. This priority is seconded by the vendor’s ease of access to relevant data and statistics. Millennials want easy access to detailed information about brands and this needs to be readily available across all platforms. On average, according to the aforementioned report from Google, B2B researchers from this age group do 12 generic searches prior to engaging with a specific brand. Importantly, they are using multiple devices to conduct these searches. When a millennial researcher is checking a vendor’s data against its competitors, a firm can therefore fall out of the race if it has failed to optimise its blog and site for mobile. In other words, providing a great omnichannel customer experience is essential for bringing prospects deeper down your sales funnel and ultimately convert them into paying customers.

How does this approach differ from Gen X or Baby Boomer buyers? Well, these generations rate the ease of doing business and use of latest technologies as the least important factors influencing their deals. This makes them notably different from millennial buyers. Instead, these generations prioritise a vendor’s ability to deliver products and services to their satisfaction and their ability to respond quickly above all else. This corresponds with the traditional marketing approach for Professional Services firms which primarily focuses on promoting products and services at  trade shows or industry events.

While there remains a place for these types of in-person events in a Professional Services marketing strategy, it is important for firms to recognise that these ways of reaching buyers are more important further down your sales funnel.

The Importance of Family and Friend Recommendations

Perhaps most surprisingly, IBM’s global study showed that when millennial researchers are ready to act they cite recommendations from family or friends outside their organisation as an equally significant influencer in their purchasing decisions as data analysis and customer experience. For Professional Services firms, this means that individuals outside of your target market are influencing the buyer’s purchasing decisions. This is the point in the customer purchasing journey where a good content marketing strategy becomes essential.

To ensure that your firm is reaching all your influencers (not just your target market), firms need to take steps to ensure their brand has a strong voice in their influencers’ digital communities. The most effective way of achieving this is by having an active blog and effective social media distribution strategy. Video content is also greatly beneficial to B2B companies, since nearly half of all millennial researchers admit to viewing 30 minutes or more of B2B-related videos during their research, according to Google. You can read more about how to win with video content and the different forms of content that attract viewers here. By using social listening tools and analytics, you can determine if your influencers are getting the right exposure to your brand with your content marketing strategy.

From these findings it is clear that abiding by a marketing model that aims its content strictly at senior-level prospects with in-person events is outdated. Professional Services firms should take away from these findings that millennials are influenced by the quality of customer experience they receive in a way in which their older colleagues are not. It is not sufficient anymore for B2Bs to simply provide great product or service satisfaction; they must provide a seamless customer experience and immersive digital experience as well.

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Wednesdays.

Best regards,

Karla McDougall
Digital Marketing Intern

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

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This is blog post number 297.

The post Should Professional Services Firms Take a Different Approach When Marketing to Millennials? appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

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The future of the workforce lies with millennials. By 2025 there will be over 75 million tech-saavy young persons from Generation Y looking to begin their careers. As such, business owners don’t need a crystal ball to recognise that the future of their companies relies heavily on millennial talent.

Millennial Candidates

For some this is a scary prospect. Millennials often come across as self-referrant techies, motivated by values divergent from their predecessors. While this is not an entirely false characterisation, statements like these can be said of each upcoming generation. If you take the time to understand what drives Generation Y, it will make assessing their track records easy. Before you know it, you’ll be one step closer to finding the perfect millennial candidate to incorporate into your team.

1. Broaden Your Search Beyond ‘Elite’ Institutions

One of the most important tactics that recruiters can use for finding young talent is thinking outside the ‘elite’ box, says Steven Rothbury, President and Founder of College Recruiter. “It’s first helpful to define what a top candidate is. Many employers think that a top candidate is an elite student at an elite school. That’s true for a very small number of employers.” Attending a top institution is undoubtedly a great achievement, but a graduate’s commitment to their extracurricular pursuits and work experience remains a clearer indicator that they’ll succeed in your workplace. A graduate with commitments that they’ve maintained for more than one or two years indicates someone that is passionate about the projects they undertake and is not shy of long-term commitment. This is key to hiring someone who will not burn out after the initial ‘honeymoon’ phase of working in a new environment wears off.

2. Recognise that Millennials Value Social Responsibility and Entrepreneurial Culture

Attracting the best talent means gaining an awareness of what millennials value and look for in a company. Lisa Orrell, a Generations Relations Expert at The Orrell Group, says recruiters should be aware that millennials look for job opportunities that offer two things: mentorship opportunities and a sense of corporate social responsibility.

Social consciousness is a trait which is heavily engrained in Generation Y. If you wish to know more about why this is the case, you can do so here.

Equally important to millennials is that their employers have an entrepreneurial spirit. Millennials want to know that their great ideas can be heard and implemented. This is particularly important for large companies who traditionally don’t have outlets for such an attitude within their established structures. If you want to stand out to millennials, Orell suggests you ask whether your company has “a culture as a whole, and within each department, that fosters and encourages an entrepreneurial spirit.”

Making use of an idea management and crowdsourcing solution for businesses, such as Sideways 6 or Conceptboard, is an easy way to foster a sense of entrepreneurial culture.

3. Allow Workflow Flexibility

Flexibility in the workplace is important to Generation Y. For graduates who are used to completing their tasks from home or in cafes using their personal devices on their own time, flexibility is not only desired but engrained in their work ethic. Allowing summer Friday afternoons off or days worked from home will not be an option for all companies, but each employer can make the effort to provide good work-life balance. A fun company culture can be achieved easily by hosting regular team-buidling days and events.

Furthermore, a social media survey from The Globe and Mail revealed that when asked which life milestones were most important to millennials, 30% stated getting married while roughly only 26% said starting their career. This demonstrates that millennials are eager to dive into their careers, but it is important for them that this does not come at the expense of their personal lives.

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Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Wednesdays.

Best regards,

Karla McDougall
Digital Marketing Intern

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

Follow Mike on Pinterest

Subscribe to

Follow us on LinkedIn

Online courses:

How to TurboCharge Your Business with a Blog
Meet Edgar Social Media Management
TurboCharge Your Twitter Presence
Quora For Business

Follow Mike on Twitter

Web Hosting Special Offer

This is blog post post number 284.

The post 3 Tips For Hiring The Right Millennial Candidate appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

Image credit: blog.wearebionic.com

Generation Y is often dismissed as being a bunch of lazy, self-indulgent and narcissistic kids. Unlike their Gen X predecessors, the “selfie” generation has grown up with smartphones in their hands, iPods in their ears and laptops slung over their backs. They are comfortable sharing their life’s most intimate (and embarrassing) details on social media, and regularly do so as a means of increasing their respective followings and aiding hopes of achieving social media stardom.

Millennials Worth the Risk?

This portrayal of Generation Y is overly simplistic and misleading. Being raised in the digital age has allowed millennials to adapt quickly to new social media platforms and smartphone technologies, which can be of immense value to business owners looking to increase their online presence. When managed effectively, the technological dexterity of millennials can be harnessed to achieve positive results for your company. Choosing not to take the risk on a millennial because of fears that they might lack a ‘good work ethic’ does them a disservice, especially when their use of these platforms are far more complex than one might first expect.

Social Media for Social Change

Rather than being merely a social tool, social media is an important platform for millennials to express their opinions on contentious issues, and advance causes and organizations they care about. According to a report published last year by Demos, a British think-tank, millennials were found to be more socially conscious than any other generation before them. Of those surveyed, 80% felt that they were more concerned with social issues than their parents and more likely to take action. Most cited social media as their primary news source and regarded it as an effective way of raising awareness for social causes. “They value bottom-up social action… they do not rely on politicians and others to solve the world’s problems, but instead roll up their sleeves and power up their laptop and smartphone to get things done through crowd sourced collaboration,” writes the report’s author Jonathan Birdwell.

At its heart, Generation Y is driven by the desire to make a societal impact, even if it comes at the cost of their salary. “Generation Y views a job not just as a means to pay the rent, rather a route to exploring their passions and philosophies,” writes the budding entrepreneur Arthur Kay, CEO of Bio-bean, an enterprise that transforms coffee grounds into fuel. “The y-generation has a holistic outlook on the world, and social enterprises help enable it.”

Currently in the UK, 7% of social enterprises have directors under the age of 24, which is over double that of five years ago. This number is only expected to grow and is a direct product of a generation emerging into the workforce that is deeply in touch with its sense of corporate responsibility.

Harnessing the Social Consciousness of Gen Y

Understanding Generation Y’s propensity towards social activism is valuable for business owners in every sector hoping to attract the best and brightest tech savvy millennials, not just social enterprise owners. In every field, millennial candidates are searching for employers who reflect their own social and ethical values. In light of this, I suggest taking the time to communicate your corporate vision to them from the start. Putting millennials on CSR-related projects and informing them of charities your company supports are also effective ways of making them feel invested in their role. Taking these steps will help your Generation Y’er to feel like they are a cog within a wheel that they can rally behind.

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So do millennials spend most of their days with their heads buried in their smartphones? Yes. Can this be frustrating and incomprehensible to members of older generations? Absolutely. But to dismiss Generation Y as self-indulgent would be a discredit to them, especially when they can bring a fresh voice and skillset to the workplace which would otherwise be lacking.

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

If you want to discuss how to successfully incorporate millennials into your team or need help planning and implementing your content marketing and social media activity, give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247 or email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com. Marketing Fundamentals Ltd are a leading B2B Content Marketing Agency in London. We create Content and use Social Media to build relationships with your prospective and existing customers or supporters.

Best regards,

Karla McDougall
Digital Marketing Intern

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

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The post Entrepreneurs – Are Millennials Worth the Risk? appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.