Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Flipboard 0 Memes are everywhere! From Facebook timelines to Instagram feeds to Reddit threads, to Twitter, they are everywhere and are loved by the younger generations. What started out as a fun way of expressing humor and jokes has become a cultural phenomenon. Memes are to the 2020s what the Hippie movement was to the 1960s. The business world has always tried to keep up with the changing cultural landscape. Adjusting to the tastes and preferences of younger generations is necessary in order for businesses to stay relevant in the market. This is what helps a business retain profitability and grow as a younger generation replaces the older one as the top consumer in the market. We currently are in the midst of such a transition, the Millennials and Generation Z are replacing older generations as the top consumer of the market all over the world. This has in turn resulted in businesses recalibrating their marketing strategies and ways of conducting business to better cater to the preferences of these younger generations. But Memes and Marketing? How did such a casual thing as Memes end up with the much more serious and profit-focused Marketing? It has left us baffled too but somehow it works and it works really well. Memes Take the Centre Stage in Marketing Meme marketing has become the next frontier of the digital marketing era. You may be wondering why memes in marketing are such a hot topic. Why are all the global brands using something so informal as memes? There’s a simple answer to this. Memes are effective and they work wonders for marketing activities! Here are some examples: The Beard Club When Disney released The Mandalorian Series, no one would have thought that Baby Yoda would steal the show and end up as an internet sensation. The memes followed soon and The Beard Club hit the iron right when it was hot! The post went viral and that only meant good news for The Beard Club. Publicity sells more products. Chipotle A hungry stomach will not care about savings and Chipotle knows that very well. Using a meme to cash in on this was simply clever on their part. Who knew memes were this effective in getting people to spend on food? Well, chipotle did! Adobe Adobe Photoshop and Memes have been the oldest of buddies and it wasn’t surprising to see them using the “FBI – Stay where you are” meme template to promote their new product, Adobe Sparks. Did it work though? Absolutely! Adobe Sparks has over 10 million downloads and a 4.4 out of 5 rating on the Google PlayStore. Gucci You know for sure that memes are effective for marketing when a Fashion Industry Titan is using them to market their products. In this instance, Gucci used the “Me vs The guy she told me not to worry about” template to promote their watch and accessories. It didn’t stop just at marketing products, Gucci used Memes to boost engagement and relate more to its customer base in order to maintain and enhance brand sentiment. Future Kind Future Kind, a vegan supplements eCommerce business, uses memes to both entertain and make their product relatable to their customers. Source Their memes receive good engagement from their target audience while helping the brand build its voice and image. Magic of Memes in Marketing The only thing that is clear to you is that the younger generations love memes and it is the way they express and communicate. But is that all? Was that enough for big businesses to use memes in marketing? No! Meme Marketing has its distinct advantages and here they are: A healthier way of marketing – Born and raised in the era of the Internet, the younger generations know their way around the online space quite well. What this means for businesses is that they will not put up with irrelevant ads or be forced to watch ads. All thanks to AdBlocks, Memes on the other hand are a form of entertainment preferred by these generations. If a business uses memes to effectively market themselves, chances are the younger generations will reciprocate. That way a business can have a wider and farther reach, that too Organic! Meme templates are free – Yes, you read that right. Meme templates carry no copyrights so there are no licensing fees involved. Now that’s a big win for cost-saving. It doesn’t end there, Meme templates are versatile, you can use a single template to showcase various things. As long as it’s relatable and humorous, it will do wonders for your marketing efforts. Making Memes is easy – There are three prerequisites for making funny and relatable memes: up-to-date and deep knowledge about meme trends, a good sense of humor, and basic photo editing skills. It shouldn’t surprise you that most businesses already have people with these skill sets, the interns! Interns being paid to do something they enjoy and love, making memes, will do wonders for any business. Happy interns would not only produce high-quality marketing memes for your firm but add more value to your business over the long run. Simple and time-saving – It’s a known fact that to run a typical marketing campaign, a business has to allocate a significant amount of its resources to it. Making memes to market your products and services is not resource-intensive at all. A single intern can easily produce a dozen high-quality marketing memes in a day. Unlike traditional marketing material, gauging the impact a meme may have on a business’ audience is relatively simple. All a meme needs to be is funny, relatable, and appropriate enough in terms of humor to do well. Resources thus conserved can be reallocated to more value-generating business functions. Adds to your Brand Value – Memes are cool and being cool is good for your brand value! Being in sync with the meme culture and using memes to communicate with your audience is a sure-shot way of being cool in the present world. Not only does this create a sense of belongingness among your audience towards your brands but also grants you additional organic reach and users are bound to share your memes. This not only saves costs but also increases the productivity of your marketing function. These points make a compelling argument as to why Memes should be a part of your business’s Digital Marketing Strategy. Social media users love memes and so should your Social Media Marketing Strategy. Conclusion Memes are here to stay and that too for a long time. It is about time that memes find a way into your digital marketing strategy and social media marketing. Your business will gain many competitive advantages by opting for Meme Marketing. You could say that Memes in marketing are not just a trend but a timely evolution. There is going to be no way around marketing without memes from now going forward. Incorporating memes in your Social Media Strategy will not only save you on resources but grant you extended and wider organic reach. Memes are set to change the Marketing landscape entirely in the coming days, make sure you do not end up as the school bus unable to move out of its way! So how will you start using memes for marketing? Twitter Tweet Facebook Share Email This article was written for Business 2 Community by Yash Chawlani.Learn how to publish your content on B2C Author: Yash Chawlani Follow @yashchawlani Yash Chawlani is a Freelance Content Marketing Strategist who is known by his personal brand Merlin. He specializes in SEO and Social Media and helps B2B and SaaS companies out there with his top-notch content strategies. In his spare time, you can either find him in the gym or on the … View full profile ›More by this author:How B2B Companies Can Leverage An Omnichannel Marketing Funnel to Improve Lead Nurturing5 Easy Ways to Introduce Automation Into Your Recruiting WorkflowWhat Are the 7 Email Design Best Practices Marketers Should Follow