All brands eventually come face-to-face with one of today’s prevailing marketing fundamentals: know your audience. Profiling various segments of your target market is instrumental to the success of your branding, marketing and conversion efforts. When your marketing messaging is optimized for these specific audiences, your digital marketing campaigns are better positioned to generate higher returns.
Today, let’s look at digital marketing trends 2022 with a focus on Generation Z marketing (also referred to as Gen Z marketing). This group accounts for approximately 40 percent of consumer markets. Marketing to Generation Z, who have nearly $143 billion in spending power, is a great opportunity for sustainable business growth that you cannot miss out on in 2022 and beyond.
In this article, we will address key points relevant to marketing to Gen Z users:
• What is Generation Z/ What is Gen Z?
• What is marketing to Gen Z like?
• What are the most effective Generation Z marketing 2022 strategies?
• What social media platforms work best for Generation Z marketing?
• What are the 2022 marketing trends that will help you capture young consumers?
Getting To Know Generation Z
Let’s start with the big question: what is Generation Z, and how will this audience impact your digital marketing 2022 strategies? To fully understand Generation Z marketing, it’s important to identify who belongs to the Gen Z segment. Also referred to as the post-Millenials, homeland generation and iGeneration, Generation Z includes people who were born in the mid-1990s to 2000s. Many of them are today’s teenagers. The oldest members of Gen Z have just joined the workforce or are in college.
When you’re marketing to Generation Z buyers, you need to know what’s important to them. As a digital marketer, asking questions like “What is Gen Z expecting from a brand?”, “What is Generation Z like?” and “What is Gen Z doing on the internet?” gives you a good idea of how to position your brand when you’re marketing to Gen Z. And you’ll know how to implement Generation Z 2022 marketing trends and strategies that work.
Gen Z individuals are a hypercognitive group who are keen to use technology to collect and cross-reference information sources. This makes online reputation marketing, social media marketing, eCommerce marketing strategies, video content marketing, content writing, influencer marketing and viral content marketing work well for this generation.
Let’s look at Gen Z’s characteristics and expectations, so you can redesign your marketing for Generation Z around these needs in 2022:
1. Generation Z Prefers Companies With a Purpose
Approximately 55 percent of Generation Z consumers prefer – and specifically seek out – socially responsible brands. Digital marketing 2022 strategies for Generation Z will need to include communicating your company values and how your brand positively contributes to society.
2. Gen Z Seeks Meaningful Interaction With Brands
This generation prefers meaningful interactions over brand appeal. Studies have shown the majority of Gen Z consumers view a brand’s responsiveness as indicative of its authenticity. They prefer companies that respond to feedback.
While this group is not keen on loyalty programs, an excellent online reputation management strategy is going to be an effective Gen Z marketing approach. Whether you manage your online reputation marketing on your own or you hire a digital marketing agency to do it for you, your responses to this market’s feedback need to sound genuine and authentic.
3. This Generation Wants a Relatable and Personalized Approach
The younger generation wants a thoughtful, tailored experience, not a one-size-fits-all interaction. Your online reputation marketing and email marketing campaigns should have a more personalized approach. A segmented email list is a good example of how to do email marketing to Generation Z leads.
Consistently providing personalized replies to every online review may seem like a daunting task, but this is an important element of digital marketing trends 2022, specifically when marketing for Generation Z. Luckily, a digital marketing agency can help you do this. Companies should also base their Generation Z marketing strategies on customers’ shopping habits and preferences, given the strong demand for personalized shopping experience.
4. They Want a Seamless Mobile Experience
Gen Z shoppers make their online purchases using their mobile phones most of the time. It makes perfect Gen Z marketing sense to set site responsiveness as a priority in your eCommerce marketing strategies. You should also consider this for your video content marketing and viral marketing campaign planning. Producing vertical video content works well for an audience who uses their mobile phones more than any other device.
5. They Have Short Attention Spans
The attention span of the average Gen Z consumer is eight seconds. This generation tends to toggle between different pages and apps. Video content marketing and viral content marketing teams should factor in this behavior when creating video content, planning out eCommerce marketing strategies or launching a viral marketing campaign.
The first few seconds of your video content are critical. Gen Z viewers are likely to click “skip” 9.5 seconds into a video ad, so make sure to deliver your message before they do.
6. They Value Their Privacy
Digital marketing trends 2022, across generations, are leaning towards being privacy-focused. When you’re collecting data for your email marketing list or your online reputation management strategy, it is important to expressly guarantee that your target audience’s information will be kept secure and safe.
Gen Z values their privacy and gravitates toward apps where they can create private and anonymous content. Social media marketing teams should therefore utilize direct channels like Snapchat and Facebook Messenger to connect one-on-one with Generation Z customers.
7. They Relate Well to Online Influencers
Surveys have shown that 44 percent of young people have tried products or services recommended by digital creators. This indicates that influencer marketing will continue to be one of the most effective 2022 marketing trends for Gen Z and should play into your social media marketing strategy. You can find many companies implementing influencer marketing on Generation Z social media platforms. It is, therefore, important to know how to do influencer marketing and get ahead of the game.
8. They Have Multiple Social Media Accounts
Generation Z and social media go together. It is not uncommon to find Gen Z teens who have multiple social media accounts. Having a solid social media marketing strategy helps a brand reach their target Gen Z audiences easier through these channels.
That said, let’s delve into the Generation Z social media platforms of choice to help you plan your influencer marketing, social media marketing and video content marketing campaigns accordingly.
Generation Z and Social Media
Contrary to popular belief, marketing for Generation Z is more than just knowing how to do influencer marketing. Digital marketing trends 2022 will continue to be social media-heavy. With so many Gen Z leads on social media, understanding the relationship between Generation Z and social media, as well as the preferred Generation Z social media platforms, is key.
You’ll want to advertise differently across these platforms. And success starts with understanding Generation Z and social media use to identify influencer marketing opportunities and ways to do effective social media brand management.
• TikTok
The holy grail of Gen Z social media, TikTok is created by and designed for the younger generation. A whopping 60 percent of TikTok users are Gen Z, making them the biggest audience on the platform. TikTok’s user base is also highly engaged. Users interact with the content they consume by saving videos, hopping on hashtag challenges or even dueting.
Launched in 2017, TikTok is relatively new. But it’s vital for businesses to learn how to market on TikTok and capture the attention of its user base. After all, this is the ultimate Gen Z domain – the place where effective social media marketing for Gen Z in 2022 begins.
Instagram influencer marketing teams know that the preferred Generation Z social media for brand discovery is Instagram and that Gen Z uses Instagram to exhibit their aspirational selves. Instagram influencer marketing, therefore, should focus on Gen Z’s ambitions and goals.
Gen Z can relate more to micro-influencers (influencers with 1,000 to 100,000 followers) than celebrities. This is good news for startups and small businesses that want to explore Instagram influencer marketing but don’t have the budget for celebrity endorsements.
• Snapchat
This is the platform where young users share real-life experiences. Your social media marketing strategy should include Snapchat to reach Gen Z because of the high volume of users. Seventy-one percent of Gen Z use Snapchat every day, with more than half of them using the app up to 11 times per day. This is a great app for your viral content marketing – entertaining, authentic and timely Snapchat content will strengthen any viral marketing campaign.
• YouTube
People who belong to the Gen Z group are self-educators and look to YouTube for new learnings and product recommendations. Eighty percent of them are on YouTube to learn more, and 68 percent use it to acquire new skills or improve themselves. YouTube as a platform to reach Gen Z is one of the best eCommerce marketing strategies you can use. Short video ads, restricted to six seconds, work better than long-form video content.
This is where Gen Z folks go to glean information and build communities. One of the best eCommerce marketing strategies you can pull off using this platform is building a community. Gen Z consumers are open to brands that offer value when engaging in group discussions. This generation also loves videos, so make the most of your Facebook Stories.
Gen Z uses Twitter to access the news and get company updates. This is also where you find Gen Z consumers posting complaints about companies, products and services. You’ll want to implement a solid online reputation management strategy here by responding to negative reviews or feedback appropriately and resolving any issues in the best way possible.
So, we’ve established the efficacy of social media in digital marketing trends 2022 and marketing to the iGeneration. But believe it or not, old-school marketing techniques can be equally as effective in reaching a younger, trendier, more tech-savvy audience. Take, for example, email marketing.
Email Marketing for Generation Z
What is email marketing used for in a group that seems to be more focused on social media? What is email marketing to Gen Z audiences like? And what is email marketing going to accomplish?
Email marketing is still an effective strategy when you’re marketing to Gen Z. Fifty-eight percent of Gen Z access emails multiple times in a day. However, this generation is quick to discern an email that is worth their time from spammy ones. If you’re marketing to Generation Z, you need to know how to do email marketing for this group. You can start by following a few simple rules:
• Write compelling subject lines.
• Make your emails mobile-friendly.
• Ensure your content is entertaining and visually stimulating.
• Steer clear of pushy sales-speak.
• Be straightforward, sincere and relatable.
• Send readers what they want, such as coupons and freebies.
• Gen Z will likely skip blog links and company updates, so save this for a different channel.
By following these tips, you can make your email marketing efforts count – even with an audience you wouldn’t expect to reach.
Digital Marketing for Gen Z
Digital marketing trends 2022 for Gen Z are bound to be different compared to other groups. We’ve learned that Generation Z consumers prefer videos to long-form content and they relate better to micro-influencers than celebrity influencers. They also have a different approach towards social media platforms than generations before them.
For over a decade, Millenials have been the focus of digital marketing campaigns. It’s time for digital marketers to broaden their scope and start marketing for Gen Z, the first generation of digital natives.
Are you stuck feeling like you don’t know the first thing about Gen Z marketing? Thrive is here for you. If you don’t know how to do influencer marketing, how to do email marketing or which channels to use to generate the best ROI, we’re here to help you figure it all out.
As your digital marketing agency, we develop an effective online reputation management strategy for your brand and implement eCommerce marketing strategies specifically targeting Generation Z consumers across all platforms. We implement the right email marketing techniques, too.
We know what it takes to optimize your brand messaging so it speaks to the right people using the right language on the right channels. Let our team tackle your Gen Z marketing challenges and establish a foothold in one of the most profitable market segments today.
Are you ready to take your Gen Z digital marketing to the next level? Don’t hesitate to contact us and set your campaigns up for success in 2022 and beyond.
