Marketing to Gen Z: 4 Statistics and what they mean for your business
As Candace mentioned in last week's blog, we’ve been hearing about marketing to Gen Z quite a bit, especially in 2022 and 2023.
Today, we’re going to take a look at four marketing statistics for Gen Z and what they may mean for your business.
First things first, who are Gen Z?!
Before we delve into marketing to Gen Z we want you to know a little bit more about them.
Gen Z are people born between the mid to late 1990’s and the early 2010’s. This generation grew up with tech, so they’re super connected. Gen Z value authenticity, transparency, inclusion, and, like millennials, Gen Z also care quite a bit about social issues.
Marketing to Gen Z
In order to market to Gen Z, it’s important to know their habits and preferences, so let’s take a look at a few statistics and what they may mean for you as a business owner.
83% of Gen Z report that some or all of their shopping starts on social media
If Gen Z are part of your target audience and you’re NOT really on or active on social media yet, you may want to rethink your current marketing strategy. As mentioned, this generation grew up with technology, so having a well thought out online presence and strategy is important for your business. After all, how are they going to buy from you, if they don’t know you exist?
We know it can be hard to be everywhere, especially if you’re a small business with limited resources, but guess what... you don’t HAVE to be everywhere. Sit down and really have a look at your audience, their behaviours, and your competitors. Think about what platforms they're on (they’ll likely be on TikTok and Instagram, for instance), how much time you’re able to spend creating and publishing content or how much you can budget for a professional to do these things, and more. Starting small on one or two platforms with a concrete plan in place, and consistent posting, can go a long way in building your online presence and in building connections with your audience.
73% of Gen Z do the majority of their shopping on a mobile device
Not only are Gen Z using social media to start their shopping journey, they’re also doing the majority of their shopping on a mobile device - from research to checkout. So, it is really important to ensure that your website is user friendly, you want the process to be as easy as possible. These days, you can also use social media, like Instagram, to optimize the shopping experience so that users can shop directly from your posts. Learn more about that here.
61% prefer short form content (particularly, videos under 1 minute)
TikTok and Instagram Reels are hugely popular, so it probably won’t come as a surprise that Gen Z prefers short form content right now, particularly videos under 1 minute long. I’ve also personally noticed more and more short form content on YouTube via YouTube Shorts. So, if Gen Z is part of your target audience you may want to explore ways to deliver short form videos if you haven’t already, and if you have experimented with short form content, it’s a good idea to add more to your strategy.
Check out our Social Media Trends 101 blog to find out how you can find and utilize social media trends for your short form content.
52% of Gen Z trusts influencers to give good advice about the brands and products they promote
It may come as a shock to you but, for Gen Z, influencers are more trusted than celebrities. So if an influencer talks about your brand, services, or product it can be a big deal. For example, products have sold out because of influencers and TikTok (we told you short form videos were important!) and businesses have “gone viral” from influencer posts. Like we said, it can be a pretty big deal.
If you want to know more about influencer marketing, check out these blogs:
We hope these four statistics have helped you understand marketing to Gen Zs a little better and, hopefully, they’ve given you some ideas for your next steps as a business or given you an idea of what you can work on to improve your marketing to Gen Zs!
Want even more tips for marketing to Gen Z’s? Check out our blog for 5 ways to reach Gen Z on social media!