Harnessing the attention of the millennial generation has been a difficult objective for many brands over the last half a decade. The millennial attention span is small, making effective messaging especially crucial. Marketers have only a few seconds or a few lines to grab this young mindset and make consumers fatefully curious in that brand’s essence and product offering.
Catering to the thin attention span is only half the battle; millennials don’t to tell you what they’re looking for in goods, services, or in life, for that matter. Millennials generations Y and Z expect you to know the ins and outs of their lives, and to cater your business to these needs. If you don’t, somebody else will.
Athletic apparel retailers are no stranger to winning this generation’s demands. Luckily, a consistent, continually increasing passions of this generation are health and fitness. Millennials have developed an acute awareness for their nutrition intake, daily physical activity and the balance between their work and home lives.
Sporting goods marketing strategies are set up for success with the built-in interests of millennials in health and wellness. But how can your retail sports marketing effectively prompt this group into a purchase? Let’s take a look.
How
Millennials are active and tech-savvy, so make your messaging interactive. Can you reach your audience while they’re working out? Support their activity monitoring by hosting an app that does all the work for them? By being there in those moments that they take so seriously as part of each day, you’ll win brand recognition amongst the group, along with their trust and loyalty.
What
Millennials are pushed so much content throughout the day, they don’t need extra, useless information to feast their eyes upon. Pinpoint exactly how you can be helpful. How can you help them grow? How can you help them achieve your goals? How can you legitimately make their lives better? If a millennial understands that your product has a genuine use, they’ll listen to you! But you’ve got to bring you’re A-game to your value-add proposition.
When
Millennials are on the go. They are active, 18-29 year olds who tend to live in urban areas or with their families. They work all day, but they’re also always dialed into their smart devices. This means they’re scoping out your brand while commuting to work or getting to the gym after hours. They are busy, and their attention spans are quick, but they can also digest a ton of information at once. Since there isn’t just one time to reach a millennial, push messaging often and frequently. Post several times throughout the day so you can reach your audience whenever it is they’re free.
Let’s look at one of the biggest sporting goods brands, Under Armour, and their success in reaching this audience. Under Armour did an exceptional job a few years back by opening up its creative development to suggestions from its consumer. Consumers had the opportunity to submit their most innovative, outlandish ideas and Under Armour agreed to produce one or several if their team found the idea both revolutionary and achievable. They allowed the consumer to be part of making the impossible possible.
As a smaller brand, you can be successful by making every extension of your marketing part of your brand experience. Invite consumers in with your messaging and make them a part of your story while you enhance their lives.
For more information and help setting up your sporting goods local business marketing plans, get in touch with our team at EM360.
