‘Born in the cloud’ or Internet companies are tech savvy companies (usually startups) that are regarded as ‘disruptors’ as they challenge traditional companies. Their advantage is a young workforce that is always innovating with fresh ideas, backed by technology, of course. These companies have a young workforce of twenty-somethings. Even their CEO may be too young to be on the board of the company.
This workforce is highly impatient and has very high expectations. Naturally, brands need to appear ‘cool’ and ‘hip’ to appeal to a young workforce. It would take a lot (cool shit) to ‘blow their minds’.
So how should brands reach out to such companies?
Video content is a great marketing tool. Brands need to create original videos that are so cool, that viewers would want to share them. This content should go viral.
The videos must be of short duration (no more than 3 minutes). They should be engaging and have impressive graphics, quick changing scenes, appealing background music. And don’t forget to include the ‘fun’ elements. While millennials may not have time to read a 50-page whitepaper, they will certainly make time to watch a great video – and share it.
Storytelling. Everyone loves to hear stories. Tell great stories that hold your audiences and keep them engaged. Embed the brand messages subtlety in the story.
Knowledge and education. Young audiences are eager to learn. If you offer them new and useful knowledge, they will hold on to every word you say. Brands can use the “how-to” or “how-it-works” approach that is so popular on platforms like Quora, Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers, Reddit etc.
Visual content. Keep it visual. Impressive infographics and visual story-telling approaches (comic strips) are sure to get the attention of young audiences.
Stop marketing, start communicating: Don’t force marketing messages on people. Rather, communicate with audiences in a friendly, advisory, yet authoritative tone. Keep it conversational.
