Marketing Beyond Millennials: Are You Ready for Gen Z?

Are YOU Ready for Gen Z?

Over the past decade, many flooring, roofing, and fencing manufacturers have been honing their ability to market to Millennials. As this generation became homeowners, this marketing shift was essential to continued success.

If your company has a winning strategy for marketing to Millennials, we suggest carrying it forward into the next decade. The oldest Millennials, born in 1981, are turning 40, so they’ll continue to dominate a large portion of the home renovation market for the foreseeable future.

However, it’s also time to look ahead to your next unique crop of customers, who are beginning to emerge from Generation Z (also referred to as Gen Z or “Zoomers”). This generation, who were born between 1997 – 2012, will be the focus of savvy marketers in the coming years. The eldest members of this generation are now 24; many of them will become homeowners within the next decade.

Gen Z is markedly different from their predecessors in several notable ways:

• Gen Z is the first generation made up of Digital Natives, which means digital marketing through social media is key to ensuring your product offerings are seen by them.
• Despite having been online since birth, a surprising 75% of Zoomers say they enjoy shopping in-store more than shopping online. This revelation means that your focus on a customer-friendly, highly interactive, tactile set of sample displays is even more important for Gen Z than it was for Millennials
• Your website should feature photos of your showroom floor, which will allow Gen Z buyers to see what they’ll experience when they arrive. This generation will be drawn in by high-quality photos of your products, both on your website and incorporated into many of your marketing materials. This means it is vital to loop in a skilled photographer for this task.
• Gen Z shoppers are likely to visit your store to get a close look at your offerings, then head home to place their order digitally. Their preference for a tactile experience in your showroom combined with the ability to place orders online is important to note.
• Your online store should be seamless and nearly instantaneous. If they encounter extra steps or lag time on your website, Gen Z will go elsewhere without hesitation—even if it means that these thrift-minded shoppers are walking away from a great deal.
• Gen Z relies on the endorsement of influencers. Look online to see which influencers focus on home renovation, home flipping, or upscale construction, and see if it’s possible to connect with them for product reviews and product placements.
• Gen Z considers themselves to be native marketers, so they will be quick to identify inauthentic sales tactics. If you share your products with genuine pride and enthusiasm, making it easy for Gen Z shoppers to recognize their value and quality, they’ll want to share them FOR YOU, which is a modern marketer’s best tool.