There is a changing approach in marketing strategy as millennials become part of small to medium sized businesses and we can already notice how they differ from baby boomers.
Magisto surveyed 500 US-based small and medium sized businesses to examine their digital and mobile marketing strategies and here are some interesting insights.
Focusing on digital media
Digital media seem to be more important for younger adults and the stats indicate that they transfer their interest into business. According to Magisto, millennials spend 58% of their marketing budget on digital media, comparing to baby boomers who only spend 14% of their budget on it.
In fact, it’s not just about digital media, but also about mobile, as 41% of millennials spend their marketing budget on mobile media, and it’s not a surprise judging by the latest trends in mobile marketing.
Social media for brand awareness
Social media is not just an additional aspect of marketing anymore but rather an integral part of a marketing strategy. 44% of brand awareness derives from social media ads, with just 13% coming from print ads and 5% from TV ads.
Younger marketers understand the importance of social media in branding, with 68% of millennials relying on social media ads for brand awareness, compared to only 27% of baby boomers.
Social media is not just about awareness, it may also be an important part of revenue generation, with younger marketers being stronger advocates of this perception.
Focusing on video
Video content has seen an impressive growth the past year, and younger marketers are significantly aware of it. 88% of millennials use or plan to use video for digital advertising, while baby boomers are not equally embracing the latest trends in video marketing.
Video is leading to new creative opportunities for branded content and despite the closer gap this time, (Read more...) are still more interested in embracing them, going up to 4x more chances than baby boomers to consider new video ad ideas.
Are businesses testing video content?
It seems that not all small to medium sized businesses are ready to embrace video content and there is again an age gap for this willingness of experimenting with it. Only 8% of baby boomers who affect the marketing decisions of a business are testing video content, while 47% of millennials are eager to do so.
The main reasonthat they are not experimenting with video content is the cost, while the technical difficulties and the lack of time are also important factors for them.
Takeaways
Here’s a summary of the results:
- There is an increasing interest of digital-first strategy and it’s starting to gain an increasing importance on the marketing spend
- Social media is gaining a gradual integration to the customer journey, from awareness to purchase.
- Video marketing keeps growing, but not all marketers are ready to test it yet
- Younger marketers are more willing to test with video content
- Cost and lack of time are the main factors that keep marketers away from video content
Related reading
New Top-Level Domains (TLDs) have become more popular in the last couple of years, so here’s everything you need to know about them.
Amazon Prime was launched in 2005 as an express shipping membership program and more than a decade later it has tens of millions of subscribers who enjoy a lot more than just free, fast shipping on millions of products Amazon sells.
Facebook isn't just the world's largest social network. In the past two years, it has also become one of the world's most popular online destinations for consuming video content.
In 2015, Verizon purchased AOL for $4.4 billion. Now, the mega wireless carrier is leveraging its wireless network as part of a new ad offering called BrandBuilder by AOL.