In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, The Marketing Millennials have carved out a unique niche. Leveraging the power of memes, the media company has built up a massive audience, now boasting a newsletter with 100,000 subscribers, a top-10 marketing podcast, and over a million followers across LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube. We sat down with their Head of Social, Aidan Brannigan, to discuss the meme marketing secrets behind their success.
Memes as a B2B Marketing Tool
Niche viral memes are the cornerstone of The Marketing Millennials’ content strategy. Unlike traditional B2B content marketing, which often emphasizes informative (but sometimes dry) content, The Marketing Millennials aim to inject humor and relatability into their posts, creating funny marketing memes that speak directly to the daily experiences of marketers. This hyper-targeted approach ensures their audience feels a deep connection to the content. As Aidan explains, “If you’re a finance bro, you will not understand our memes. But for marketers, we’re touching on experiences they feel every single day.” This ability to tap into the collective consciousness of their audience has been a significant driver of their success.
Meme marketing might seem an unconventional choice for B2B, but the effectiveness of memes lies in their ability to humanize brands and make them more relatable. For The Marketing Millennials, memes serve as a vehicle to address common pain points and experiences shared by marketers. This approach builds a sense of community among their followers, as they see their daily struggles and triumphs reflected in the “super targeted” content: “They leave our page and they’re like, do The Marketing Millennials have a camera in my office?”
Aidan highlights that meme marketing works because memes are so easily digestible and shareable. In a world of increasingly short attention spans, a well-crafted meme has the power to convey a message both quickly and memorably. This is particularly valuable in B2B marketing, where decision-makers are often bombarded with information. By creating funny marketing memes that are both entertaining and relevant, The Marketing Millennials manage to stand out in a crowded digital landscape.
Consistency is Key in Meme Marketing
Over the past year and a half, The Marketing Millennials’ LinkedIn following has grown from 230,000 to 860,000 followers, with its Instagram page also scaling from 18,000 to 115,000 followers in the same timeframe. Aidan credits this explosive growth to The Marketing Millennials’ combination of strategic content creation and consistency in posting across multiple platforms: “One of the biggest growth levers is just the consistency. We’ve been posting one, two, three times a day for years, so it’s like a compounding effect.”
This consistency, he emphasizes, is the only aspect of social media a company has full control over. By maintaining a steady flow of quality content, The Marketing Millennials not only keep their audience engaged, but also increase their chances of hitting on viral trends. And the more they do it, the better they get. “If you want to get better at free throws, you’ve got to shoot more free throws,” Aidan explains. “So, if you want to get better at social media, you’ve got to post more content. That’s how you learn quicker.” For The Marketing Millennials, this means constantly experimenting with different types of content, analyzing what works, and doubling down on successful posts.
One of the main benefits of being consistent is the trust it builds with the audience. When followers see a company consistently delivering valuable content, they are more likely to view the brand as a reliable source of information and entertainment. A consistent brand presence also helps to solidify a company’s identity in the minds of its audience, which can be a significant competitive advantage in the crowded digital landscape. Aidan emphasizes that while many tout the value of quality over quantity when it comes to posting, those are typically “the ones who have already built the audience and spent the years just putting out a ton of content”. Trust has to be built slowly, over time, in order to gain a robust and engaged following.
How to Create Viral Marketing Memes
Creating viral memes is both an art and a science. For Aidan, the process is structured yet flexible enough to allow for creativity. He blocks off space in his schedule for content creation, spending around four hours each week brainstorming, gathering inspiration, and crafting memes. This regular schedule not only ensures a steady stream of new material but also helps him get into a creative flow state.
As a marketer himself, his own understanding of their audience’s pain points comes into play: “I’m making memes about things I experience daily.” However, he doesn’t rely solely on personal experience for inspiration. A chunk of his allotted time is spent scrolling through platforms like Reddit, Twitter, and Instagram, in a “mass amount of consumption” intended to identify popular meme templates of the moment and trending topics among marketers. He also uses apps such as CapCut and TikTok to find on-trend video meme templates.
He admits that not every meme makes the cut; the first few creations are often discarded as he warms up his creative muscles. “Let’s say I make, like, 50. The first 15 I make, I’m never going to post.” It’s an iterative process of producing and refining until he finds what works.
From Meme Marketing to Video Content
While meme marketing has been the mainstay of their strategy so far, The Marketing Millennials also recognize the potential of video content moving forward. Although short-form video content is currently in vogue, Aidan believes there is still immense potential in long-form content, particularly on platforms like YouTube. However, building a following for this kind of content requires deeper engagement and higher levels of trust: “Anybody can go viral on TikTok with a stupid video, but not anybody can get thousands of views with a long-form informative piece of content on YouTube.”
Building on their current success, The Marketing Millennials aim to do just that. A dual approach, utilising both memes and video content, will allow them to cater to both casual viewers and those seeking more comprehensive insights. “We’re really trying to test ourselves,” Aidan explains. “We’re investing in YouTube as a medium to tell longer stories and just really flex our authority.”
Does Meme Marketing Work?
The Marketing Millennials’ journey from simple LinkedIn page to media powerhouse offers valuable lessons for marketers everywhere. By prioritizing consistency, understanding their audience, and embracing creativity, they have successfully built up a vibrant community of engaged followers. Their innovative use of memes as a marketing tool, as well as their willingness to diversify into other forms of content, highlights the importance of adaptability when it comes to connecting with audiences in today’s fast-paced digital world.
As The Marketing Millennials continue to innovate and evolve, they remain focused on staying ahead of trends and adapting to the changing landscape of digital marketing. For those looking to replicate their success, the takeaways are clear: keep experimenting, be consistent, and always put your audience first.