How to Market to Millennials

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Ah, millennials—those born between 1981 and 1996, who have transitioned from landlines to smartphones and VHS tapes to streaming services. This generation is now a key target market, and for good reason: Their spending power and brand loyalty cannot be underestimated.
Unlike Gen Z (born between 1997 and 2012), who have grown up fully immersed in the internet culture, millennials straddle the line between the analog past and the digital present, giving them a unique perspective on technology and consumerism.
To learn how to market to millennials, you must first understand their values, such as authenticity, sustainability, and meaningful experiences. Brands like Chipotle, Netflix, and Uber have succeeded in capturing millennial interest, and with the right strategy, you can too!
Millennials (a.k.a Gen Y) have witnessed plenty of ups and downs in their formative years—9/11, the Great Recession, multiple severe market crashes, and the most recent, the COVID-19 pandemic and cost of living crisis. This generation has truly seen it all. They may also carry huge student loan debts that make it difficult to maintain financial stability during rising inflation.
These experiences have molded them differently. Their buying habits, thoughts on money, and outlook on life are far removed from those of their predecessors. They’re socially conscious and seek out brands that align with their values. They support companies that are sustainable, ethical, and give back to the community. They look for value-oriented purchases and seek meaningful experiences.
Now, let’s explore what makes millennials, um, millennials.
Now, let’s find out what the shopping and spending preferences of this generation are:
According to an Eventbrite survey, as far back as almost a decade ago, 78% of millennials preferred to spend money on an event (concerts, comedy shows) or an experience (traveling, adventure sports) over buying something desirable.
This has stemmed from two possible reasons:
The CouponFollow Millennial Shopping Habits Report says that 80% of millennials do most of their shopping online.
Due to their tech-savvy nature and the experience of surviving a pandemic, millennials are naturally drawn toward e-commerce sites. Here, they make decisions based on available deals and customer reviews.
To be accepted and loved by millennials, businesses first have to understand their preferences and what shapes them. As the millennial age group is significantly vast, there can be differences between the wants and needs of 28-year-olds and people in their late 30s or early 40s.
If you’re a business owner or marketer trying to attract millennials, create a clear user persona.
Why is this important?
It helps you understand your target audience better and make informed business decisions based on their needs, goals, behaviors, and buying preferences. While designing your ideal customer profile (ICP), you might find valuable insights about their demographic that you otherwise would have missed.
ClickUp, a project and marketing management tool, can be useful here. You can use ClickUp’s User Persona Whiteboard Template to collect information, design products that cater to your ICP’s needs, and visualize real-life user scenarios.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to using this template for creating millennial user personas:
The template ensures your efforts reach the right millennial audience, and you win their trust by speaking their language.
Successfully marketing to millennials requires specific marketing strategies that connect with them, and here are some of the tried and tested ones:
95% of millennials use social media, and 86% use it daily. Needless to say, social media is the best digital channel to market to them. Now, the question is, what are their preferred platforms? A recent study by HubSpot says that the highest number of millennials (68%) choose YouTube as their favorite platform, followed by Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X.

Social media is no longer restricted to keeping in touch with friends and family. It has expanded into a mode of informal learning, entertainment, connecting with like-minded individuals, and staying on top of current news and events. As a medium, it has a lot of power to shape the way millennials think, act, and make decisions.
Follow these tips to be more intentional with your social media marketing strategy:
Mailchimp’s social media strategy can be a great example. If you look at their LinkedIn or X accounts, you’ll see stunning, welcoming visuals, crisp video content, and lots of free and helpful resources.
Want to create engaging social media content at scale? Use ClickUp’s Social Media Template to plan your content in batches, maintain consistent brand identity across platforms in terms of visuals and messaging, and keep your posts organized.
Using the embedded form, you can collect ideas from team members, collaborate on new campaigns, and monitor campaign performance all in one place. With visibility into past and upcoming posts, you can easily spot posts deviating from the brand guidelines and make changes to ensure uniformity.
This one’s ideal for busy social media marketers who manage multiple channels and campaigns. The ready-to-use template saves time while also allowing enough freedom to incorporate brand-specific customizations to make it a good fit for your workflow.
You can also use ClickUp’s Social Media Content Plan Template, another helpful free resource from ClickUp’s library.
This one’s more suited for one-person social media teams where one marketer has to wear many hats.
Here’s how you can simplify social media project management with the template:
During the turn of the millennium, when mobile phones first hit the market, the earliest millennials had just become adults, while the rest were in their teen or pre-teen years. Thanks to this exposure, they became naturally conversant with mobile technologies, and that affinity only became stronger with time.
On average, millennials spend 3.53 hours daily on their phone, as opposed to 2.5 hours on a PC, laptop, or tablet. That’s why, as a marketer, you should adopt a mobile-first approach to meet your customers on the same ground.
Here are some quick tips to make your mobile marketing strategy on-point:
A great example of mobile-first marketing is IKEA’s inclusion of augmented reality (AR) in their mobile app. Buyers can check how a piece of furniture would look in their room using AR and make quick purchase decisions without taking a trip to the store.
Create content that pulls millennials in rather than pushing ads onto them. This content should resonate with their interests, aspirations, and challenges. For example, if you’re selling eco-friendly products, your content might include tips for sustainable living, DIY recycling projects, or guides on reducing carbon footprints.
Try to drive engagement across owned, earned, and paid media channels to reach a bigger audience who might be interested in what you offer.
HubSpot, a leading inbound marketing and sales software company, practices what it preaches when it comes to inbound marketing. Through its blog, ebooks, webinars, and free tools, HubSpot provides valuable content on topics related to marketing, sales, and customer service. Their content is educational and addresses the pain points and challenges their target audience faces, which largely consists of marketers, sales professionals, and business owners.
Communicate your brand’s values and mission. Whether it’s sustainability, diversity, or social responsibility, aligning your brand with causes that matter to millennials can significantly impact their perception of your brand.
However, it’s not enough to just talk the talk. You have to support your values with meaningful actions. For example, if your core value is sustainability, you should employ sustainable sourcing practices, ensure ethical labor conditions throughout your supply chain, and engage in charitable initiatives.
Patagonia, a leading outdoor clothing and gear company, has built its brand around environmental and social responsibility. They actively promote sustainability by using recycled materials, reducing their carbon footprint, and donating some of their profits to environmental causes.
Encourage millennials to create and share content related to your brand. For example, you might host UGC contests, challenges, or campaigns encouraging users to share photos, videos, or testimonials featuring your products or brand experiences in exchange for an incentive.
By showcasing UGC on your website and social media channels, you can amplify your brand’s reach and showcase real-life examples of how your products or services are being used and enjoyed by real people. This social proof can be incredibly persuasive for millennial consumers who stand by the phrase ‘pictures, or it didn’t happen!’
The popular action camera brand GoPro has successfully leveraged user-generated content to market its products. GoPro’s social media channels, website, and marketing campaigns are filled with user-generated photos and videos of breathtaking landscapes, adrenaline-pumping activities, and heartwarming moments.
Use e-commerce platforms or dedicated mobile apps to offer a seamless shopping experience, with personalized product recommendations based on browsing and purchase history and hassle-free checkout.
It’s a win-win situation for brands and millennials. Millennials love the convenience and personalized experience of these mediums, and as a brand, you glean valuable data on their preferences and behaviors.
You should also recreate the same experience at physical stores. The stores should work as experiential hubs where customers can engage with the brand through interactive displays, product trials, and events. When the shopping experience is equally smooth across channels, millennials can swiftly move between digital and physical touchpoints.
Nike has successfully implemented these strategies by offering a unified shopping experience across multiple channels, including its e-commerce platform, mobile app, and brick-and-mortar stores.
To create an effective millennial marketing strategy, you have to go the extra mile and put yourself in your target group’s shoes. Use a comprehensive tool such as ClickUp’s Marketing Project Management Software to understand your millennial audience better and ensure your branding efforts resonate with them.

Here’s how you can leverage ClickUp’s suite of features:






Let’s explore how you can engage with millennials through different experiences and values:
Millennials seek digital interactions that go beyond mere entertainment; they crave meaningful experiences that add value to their lives. Businesses should prioritize creating digital platforms, apps, and content that educate, inspire, or empower users while also keeping things enjoyable.
Let’s take Duolingo as an example. Its gamified console and visually appealing UI make learners keen to stick to their journey of learning a new language. On top of that, there’s the brand mascot Owl Duo, which hammers users with passive-aggressive (and often hilarious) reminders on social media to carry on their lessons. Memorable indeed!

Millennials are drawn toward brands that don’t shy away from showing off their true selves. Businesses should strive to build trust by being transparent about their values, practices, and origins. They can convey authenticity through storytelling, behind-the-scenes content, user-generated testimonials, or by turning founders, CEOs, and employees into brand ambassadors using social media.
It may feel daunting to design a brand management strategy from scratch, as there are multiple moving pieces, and you want to get all of them right. You can use customizable branding templates to structure the message and the story you want to highlight.
ClickUp’s Branding Template is one such framework. With this template, businesses can create a consistent visual identity across all marketing materials and distribution channels.
You can define your brand’s style, tone, logo, colors, language, feel, and more and give it a personality. The template allows you to track the different aspects of the branding process within a single platform, where you and other decision-makers can track progress, add suggestions, and give approvals.
It’s easy to lose track of tasks when developing a brand image because there’s so much to do, but this template keeps you organized.
Millennials are socially conscious and gravitate toward brands that support causes they are passionate about. Businesses can engage this demographic by aligning social causes (such as environmental sustainability, diversity and inclusion, or community outreach) with tangible actions, such as donations, volunteer work, or eco-friendly initiatives. These efforts showcase that the company cares about making an impact beyond profit.
Millennials appreciate it when you make them smile—humor captures their attention and makes the brand relatable. Businesses can use humor in their marketing campaigns, social media posts, and advertising to create memorable experiences and encourage engagement.
The popular SEO software Semrush has mastered this strategy. Here’s one of the many social media posts from Semrush that made us chuckle:

Millennials expect prompt and tailored customer management. Businesses have to diversify their communication channels, including live chat, social media, email, and phone support, to accommodate different preferences. Responding quickly, addressing concerns empathetically, and providing value-adding solutions improve the overall customer experience. All of this turns millennials into loyal brand advocates.
However, handling requests at scale without affecting the quality of service can get overwhelming. This is where ClickUp Brain comes to the rescue.

Customer service teams can use this AI co-pilot for:

Besides fast-tracking your customer service with AI, you can make their workflow smoother and more structured with ready-to-use customer service templates.
For instance, ClickUp’s Customer Service Management Template helps you monitor incoming support tickets, collaborate with teams to find solutions and offer on-time resolutions.
With four customizable views (List, Board, Doc, and Form view), you can easily track new, pending, in-progress, and resolved support requests and ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
The pre-built custom fields allow you to add important details to a ticket, such as type of issue, completion status, requestor’s contact email, and customer satisfaction rating.
Facilitate customer service with this template and win brownie points from customers!
Millennials are drawn to businesses that address larger societal or environmental challenges with a creative twist. Prioritizing innovation and coming up with impactful solutions to real-life problems appeal to millennials’ desire for purposeful consumption.
Skincare brand Dove used this strategy for its Project #ShowUs campaign in 2019. The objective was to address the lack of representation of everyday women in mainstream advertising. They initiated a campaign to create diverse stock imagery featuring real women.
This collection, now the world’s largest, comprises over 10,000 photos available on Getty Images, and 10% of the proceeds from image sales are reinvested to sustain Project #ShowUs. The project was a massive success and resulted in huge appreciation for the brand.
Gen Y appreciates brands that are empathetic toward their unique circumstances and understand their individual needs and preferences. Personalization techniques, such as targeted campaigns, customized recommendations, and tailored communication, make marketing efforts more appealing and lower sales for millennials.
Here’s an example: Hoxton Hotels targets travel enthusiasts with relevant ads.

From what we’ve discussed so far, it’s safe to deduce that to create content that appeals to millennials, it has to tick the following boxes:
Keeping these four factors in mind will help you stand apart from competitors and strike a chord with your target group, i.e., millennials.
You can also explore ready-to-use templates to further streamline content marketing management:
1. ClickUp’s Content Marketing Plan Template
Define your target audience and objectives and develop a comprehensive plan to guide your content creation and distribution across channels. Bring team members together to collaborate and brainstorm ideas with the help of this template. It allows you to:
Whether this is your first time creating a content strategy or you want to adopt a more structured approach in your existing processes, this framework is a great resource you must try out.
2. ClickUp’s Content Management Template
This one’s your one-stop destination to plan and manage omnichannel content, from web content, blogs, and social media posts to newsletters. This framework is particularly useful for large content teams with multiple stakeholders and multiple channels to cater to.
Use the template to request creative input from team members, plan and collaborate in real time, maintain an editorial calendar, and publish/deliver content on time.
Configure the template with custom statuses, views, and fields, and stay aligned with your content calendar.
As a marketing strategist, you’ll often find yourself running against time. And at peak times, you might get hit with the dreaded creative block. In those days (and on every other day when you’re multitasking like a pro), ClickUp Brain proves useful. It can help you:

With AI taking care of these tasks, you can focus more on strategizing.
Given their digital-first search preferences, it’s not surprising that high SEO (search engine optimization) ranking builds trust with millennials, who see it as a sign of legitimacy. SEO with relevant keywords can put your brand at the forefront when millennials search for solutions to their problems.
As conversational search becomes more popular, optimizing for long-tail keywords that mimic natural speech can help brands capture millennial voice searches.
Landing pages that directly address the search intent (the reason for the search) also resonate with millennials who value their time. Clear, concise information and easy conversion options are essential. Millennials are wary of sales tactics and appreciate upfront communication, as we’ve already established.
Focusing on SEO and landing page optimization can ensure that your marketing efforts resonate with millennial search habits and decision-making processes.
Gen Y loves authenticity, cares about social and environmental issues, and craves personalized experiences.
To connect with them, you need to be active on digital channels, especially social media, and keep them hooked with valuable, visually appealing content. Show them that your brand stands for something meaningful and that you are transparent in your practices. Keep an eye on trends and be ready to adapt.
By following these strategies, you’ll build lasting loyalty among the largest demographic, setting your brand up for long-term success. And have a tool like ClickUp by your side to do all of that in an organized way.
Sign up for ClickUp today and use its comprehensive features to market your business strategies to millennials.
To effectively reach millennials, brands should prioritize digital platforms and social media channels such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, where millennials spend a considerable amount of their time. Utilizing engaging content formats such as videos, memes, and interactive posts can help capture their attention.
Millennials are known for their value-driven consumption habits. They prioritize authenticity, seeking genuine connections with brands and products. Sustainability is a significant concern, with many millennials opting for eco-friendly and ethically sourced products.
They’re also early adopters of technology, constantly seeking innovative products and experiences. Experiential purchases, like travel and events, often take precedence over material possessions.
Millennials are individuals born between 1981 and 1996, although exact definitions can vary. As of 2024, the oldest millennials are in their early 40s, while the youngest are in their late 20s.
Millennials respond well to advertising that feels personalized and authentic. They appreciate content that speaks directly to their interests and values, whether it’s through targeted social media ads, influencer partnerships, or user-generated content.
Brands target millennials because they represent a significant part of the consumer market with substantial purchasing power. Millennials have a strong influence on consumer trends, often shaping the preferences of older and younger generations alike. By capturing the loyalty of millennials, brands can establish long-term relationships and secure their foothold in the market.
If you’re 26 years old in 2024, you probably belong to Gen Z. But hey, you can still relate to millennials or consider yourself one, as the age barriers to define these generational cohorts are pretty flexible.
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