How to Use Influencer Marketing to Reach Millennials

Fining marketing channels for millennials can be challenging, but thanks to influencer marketing, it’s gotten much easier.

Hiring in a well-known celebrity to hold a beer bottle, wear a pair of pants or take a bite of a burger has and continues to be a method of driving attention and traffic to a brand website, storefront or social media page. Its still a good way to reach target markets including millennials (age range from 22 to 37 in 2018), but you have to have deep pockets.

However, the world of endorsements has undergone a radical shift lately.

Because of Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and others, ordinary people have become micro-celebrities. Also known as influencers, these people may not be well known to the general public, but they are to the key target groups who follow them… like millennials.

Instagram models, video game commentators and those who have amassed a large following for what they say and do on social media are now influencers.

But it gets better:

Because working with influencers has become its own social media strategy.

What Does Influence Mean?

Influencers create and share content on social media platforms.  Their content is videos, pictures, blog posts, social media posts or a combination.  It all depends on what they like to create.

They may have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers and subscribers. They produce videos on YouTube, post images and stories on Instagram and provide content on other social media platforms like Snapchat and Facebook.

You can find them just about anywhere online — and millennials are often the influencers themselves.

No matter what, influencers normally focus on a niche such as beauty, fashion, health, fitness or technology.

They like to cover beauty products, clothing, video games, and technology gadgets… you name it. From time to time they might diverge from one particular topic to another, but for the most part, they stay focused.

For you, this means anyone who follows the influencer both enjoys the content they create and may follow their advice to buy something.

It’s because of this following that they have become so desirable in the world of marketing. Unlike other advertising or other strategies, influencers have their fingers on the pulse of their audience.

Reaching Target Markets Can Be Difficult

Some target markets can be difficult to connect with, especially millennials. Their expectations are different from previous generations, partly because they grew up when the Internet was omnipresent.

Behaviorally, they are different.  They post to social media, almost without thinking about it.

Now:

Brands marketing to millennials know this.  They know that they must emotionally connect with millennial buyers – but that’s where the challenge lies.

Advertising on Google and Facebook is complicated and getting increasingly competitive and expensive.  Unless you’re prepared to invest a lot of budget into those social platforms to locate and dial in your target market, you better look for alternatives.

This is where using influencer marketing comes into play – or in this case, influencer advertising.

Advertising with an Influencer

When you advertise with an influencer, you directly connect your brand with your target audience.

Not only is it more direct, it’s also more cost-effective.

You don’t need to create an advertisement. By leveraging influencers, you get your product in front of their followers via content the influencer creates.  This is part of the reason why millennials trust influencers.

Even better:

Unlike other forms of advertising, working with influencers gives you many options…

You might sponsor a simple post of the influencer using your product.

For example, you could arrange for an Instagram influencer to post herself wearing your fashion product like a shirt or pair of sunglasses, or using the product in an Instagram story.  You might even arrange for the influencer to do both.

The point is, it might be limited to a single post or a series of posts. That’s up to you to arrange with the influencer.  There’s no set way to do it.

Some brands have teamed up with influencers not necessarily for a set number of posts, but for a set amount of time.

Think about how you want your campaign to work and for how long.

Influencer Marketing Examples

Take a look at how other brands have done it.  Use their examples and come up with a campaign of your own.

For example:

Sour Patch Kids teamed up with a popular influencer with several million combined followers on YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat.

They arranged for the influencer to share video and images of himself at the Sour Patch Kid headquarters. Sour Patch Kids also created specialty lenses and filters for Snapchat, which allowed followers to use the filters after viewing the content. Word of the campaign got shared, making it go viral for a while.

The custom filter also allowed people who didn’t follow the influencer, but who followed those who did, to find it and use it themselves. This strategy also worked on a larger scale involving professional athletes sponsored by Gatorade and Nike.

Here’s another example:

Weight Watchers teamed up with big-time influencers like DJ Khaled allowing subscribers to follow along with his weight loss transformation over a period of time.

Other influencers posted showing how the Weight Watchers lifestyle worked and what they could eat.

But what if you haven’t got the cash to sponsor a big name personality? That’s okay too.

You don’t need to have the advertising money of a Sour Patch Kids or Weight Watchers.

These are examples of larger, more extensive versions of influencer marketing. It’s not even necessary to find someone with hundreds of thousands or millions of subscribers.

Someone with subscribers in the tens of thousands can drive ROI and be cost-effective.

So find the social media influencers your millennials like, trust and follow. Then arrange to work with them.

Wrapping Up

Reaching the millennial generation doesn’t require shelling out the big bucks on a big-time movie star, performer or athlete.

These are expensive marketing approaches only a handful of brands can afford.

You can find influencers who cost a fraction of the price and who connect with your ideal audience.  They’ll be more effective than any prime-time TV commercial or magazine advertisement ever could.

That is why you need to take advantage of influencer marketing in order to reach the younger demographics.

It’s straightforward, costs less and can produce the ROI you’re looking for.

Want to learn more? Join our FREE Facebook Group: Influencer Marketing for Badasses

Guest post by James Gorski

In addition to being the editor at designrfix and writing about tech, web and graphic design among other subjects,
I love to “unplug” and be outdoors hiking and enjoying nature. If you can’t reach me,
it’s probably because where I am at doesn’t have cell phone reception.