How Social and Creator Content Impacts Millennial Car Buying

The automotive industry has long been focused on boosting sales of cars among the millennial generation. There’s a widely-held myth that this age group doesn’t buy vehicles, choosing to focus their expenditures on items like Uber rides, smartphones and public transport. However, recent millennial car buying trends tell a different story. More than 25% of all car sales in 2014 were attributed to those between the ages of 18-34 in 2014, an increase of 18% since 2010. This makes millennials the second-biggest age group buying vehicles after the baby boomers.

With so much focus shifting to this age group, automotive marketers have the perfect opportunity to engage millennials using social media and creator content. What strategies and tips can help ensure they find success with this elusive car-buying age group? Here are a few ideas.

Make sure your brand is visible in social media

Millennials love to research products and shop online, and that pattern increasingly holds true even for cars. One study found that the average millennial shopper will spend more than 17 hours shopping for cars online before they ever set foot at a dealership. This makes it critical that any automotive brand build a big enough digital and social presence to ensure visibility during this research process.

“Experiential” marketing will get more important for selling cars

Directly related to the point above, a growing focus for car brands trying to attract millennial buyers is experiential marketing. Millennials have a tendency to value experiences over things when making purchase decisions. It’s one reason why an Eventbrite study noted that 78% of millennials would rather spend money on experiences rather than physical goods.

This isn’t necessarily bad news for car sellers. It simply means they need to focus on selling the “experience” of owning the car rather than the car’s features. Distribution channels like social media and content strategies utilizing creators can help car marketers demonstrate what it’s like to drive the car, show off how millennial owners can customize their ride, or even offer them opportunities to become part of car owner communities.

Find the right automotive-focused creators for car-focused campaigns

One great way to simplify the process of marketing to millennial car buyers online is by partnering with creators on car-themed content. Through our platform, we identified a few of the top auto creators:

• Ken Block – with a total reach of 9.96m followers, professional rally driver Ken Block is one of the world’s top automotive creators. His heart-pounding social media posts, featuring the world’s fastest cars and amazing driving feats leaves his social media fans hungry for more.
• Richard Rawlings – the owner of the Gas Monkey Garage automotive retail chain, Rawlings boasts a reach of more than 4.14m followers on social. He frequently posts about his business, his travels, and content celebrating car culture.
• James Stewart – this motocross star and Red Bull athlete has a reach of more than 3.29m followers on social.
• Rubens Barrichello – the Brazilian F1 and IndyCar driver Rubens Barrichello is another top car-related social star, with a total reach of more than 2.95m followers.

Want to learn more about how to target millennial consumers, whether it’s for the automotive category or beyond? Talk to the experts at Captiv8 today.