If you have read anything that is business or technology-related over the past few years, you have heard the term Millennials – adults ranging from the ages of 18 to 34 years old. This group represents an annual buying power of roughly $1.3 trillion, which would make most marketing professionals pay attention to it. This group is often perceived as being self-centered and egotistic. However, millennials in the U.S. are fairly diverse as 43% of this group consists of ethnicities other than Caucasians, while 25% can fluently speak a language other than English.

It can be tough for marketers to approach a group that is so diverse and unique in its interests. However, most millennials share common characteristics that can be noted when preparing a marketing plan to reach them.

1. Step your Mobile Marketing game up.
It is essential to send your marketing through mobile channels in this day and age, but since millennials spend a good bit of their leisure time on their smartphones, you must consider your mobile marketing plan when targeting this group of consumers.

You have to consider the necessities in order to become proficient at mobile marketing. How optimized is your landing page? Does it contain too many graphics that slows it down when loading? Do you have a clear call-to-action?

Once you have made these adjustments, become creative with your approach. Offer in-app rewards for users who engage your website and mobile applications. Make your marketing trendy and attractive, but effective. Creating ways to implement your advertising into popular mobile apps and websites are a great way to grasp the attention of millennials.

2. Go after social groups and focus less on life stages.
Millennials are far from being traditional. Therefore, they do not identify with life stage advertising the way generations did in the past. They see the world through a different lens, and the words “family” and “community” can mean different things to millennials. Millennials are less interested in purchasing homes due to current economic conditions, and this is fueled by the desire of many millennials to live a lifestyle and engage in work that is less dependent on one location. Life as an adult is not the same for millennials, and marketers need to take this concept into consideration when creating marketing plans.

Marketers in Atlanta, Savannah, Richmond Hill (Georgia) and anywhere else in the US will have more success if they focus their millennial marketing on social groups instead of life stages. An example of this would be to target marketing towards population segments that support certain social interests or live alternative lifestyles. Many millennials follow social media personalities and celebrities so marketers can use these icons as a natural way to get their advertising in front of this non-traditional group. Millennials are more interested in social identities and their culture than they are in observing a certain stage of life.

3. Engage and stay relevant.
This concept applies to virtually all groups, but staying relevant is especially important when targeting millennials. A world without social media and the Internet is unknown to millennials. Therefore, your advertising message will not be taken at face value. You must give them a reason to spend their money on your product or services. And it needs to be a good reason.

Millennials are more focused on using online research to solve real life issues, whether they do this research through traditional searching or through social media pages. Brands that can present simple, relevant answers to issues that millennials observe in the real world will stay relevant and grasp the attention of this group.

It is important that your marketing also be engaging. Nearly 95% of millennials admit that their friends are the most credible source for information on products. Therefore, if you can capture a solid base of dedicated millennials for your brand, they will bring their friends along for the ride and increase your online marketing results to new levels. The most effective way to get your brand popularized among millennials is through the millennials themselves.

This means that you should engage your customers, stay relevant and create solutions while marketing your products and services. If you cannot make this happen, millennials will drift to the brands that can, leaving your company and its message to blend in with the rest of the unnoticeable world. It does not have to be hard to market to millennials – by steeping up your mobile marketing game, focusing on social interests instead of life stages and staying relevant, you can become a brand that millennials recognize and identify with. Once you get this under your belt, dig deeper and market to the exact consumer segment that buys your products. By identifying these segments within a diverse millennial group and marketing directly to them, you’ll achieve more return on your marketing money.