Leveraging Modern Millennial Marketing (MMM) at ISSA Show North America 2022 in Chicago

By Samantha Hager

The cleaning industry as a whole is not one that is often associated with modern trends, younger generations, or the use of humor as a marketing strategy. Instead, most cleaning brands let their products and skills speak for themselves. And, while your products or services may be enough to retain your current client base and keep your business profitable, what if a few modern millennial marketing strategies could quite literally double your profits in the blink of an eye? This is what we at Cleanfax seek to showcase in this 2022 ISSA Show North America exclusive.  

With the ISSA Show North America less than a month away, you can begin to work on these strategies now to prepare for this highly important event and outperform the competition.

By using these strategies to bring your brand into the 21st century and beyond, you can leverage the engagement you receive to increase your profits, boost site traffic, gain more followers on your social media channels, and even connect with more companies than ever before on the show floor. But, to understand how to embrace the unstoppable force that is modern marketing as a cleaning company owner or leader, you must first recognize the true power of these strategies for businesses far and wide.  

The power of Modern Millennial Marketing (MMM)

Modern Millennial Marketing, or MMM, is a term coined by several marketing leaders to describe the transition from traditional marketing to a more modern and unique approach. In the past, marketing revolved around product or service advertising. Print marketing, email marketing, and ads reigned supreme with very little social media or video marketing in the loop.  

However, nowadays, companies embracing these modern forms of marketing are seeing unbelievable traction and engagement thus proving how invaluable these strategies can be for cleaning businesses’ growth and profitability.  

To see the power of these methods and how they matter, all it takes is a closer look at the statistics surrounding them:

• 66% of millennials say their customer service expectations have risen in the last year, and they expect to get an immediate response to their social media queries. (Source: ReadWrite)
• 3 in 10 (31% of) adults used social media more in the past year to follow brands. (Source: Sprout Social)
• 34% of respondents say they use social media to learn about products, services, and brands. (Source: Sprout Social)
• About two-fifths (43%) said they used social media more in the past year to learn about products or brands. (Source: Sprout Social)
• More than half of marketers (52%) who use TikTok plan to increase their investment in 2022, which is one of the highest jumps of any platform. (Source: HubSpot)
• TikTok is the most engaging of all social media apps with an average user session of 10.85 minutes. (Source: Statista)
• Almost 70% of organizations use social media as their primary marketing approach. (Source: HubSpot)
• Thanks to implementing a social selling program, IBM boosted sales by 400%. (Source: IBM)
• 69% of Millennials experience FOMO, the most of any age group. (Source: Eventbrite)

While we could continue to go on and on about the value of social media, modern marketing, and using trends to your benefit as a business leader, these statistics are more than enough to prove how valuable these methods are for companies and their success rates.  

However, to begin utilizing these valuable strategies, you will need to determine which aligns best with your brand and when to introduce them. To help with this, we’ve compiled 8 methods you can easily introduce at the upcoming 2022 ISSA Show North America in order to truly get the most out of your ISSA Show experience and connect with your industry. With this list, you can modernize your brand and revolutionize your image all while promoting your company and its part in the ISSA Show. After all, as Henry Ford once said, “You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.”

8 methods to embrace your cleaning brand’s quirks and profit  

No matter what method you choose from the list below, the most important thing your company has to embrace isn’t marketing strategies but rather its diverse and unique image. If you can’t learn to laugh and find ways to let your €˜wild side’ shine through, you won’t ever be able to appeal to these modern generations that long for more personal and down-to-earth connections with the brands they support.  

Knowing this, choose which marketing strategies below work for you and your team and use your company’s charm and honesty to create content that resonates with your industry and consumers explicitly.  

1. Embracing emojis

Perhaps the easiest method on this list, it also remains one of the most important to communicate with your younger audience. Emojis are used in everything from texts and video descriptions all the way to news reports and press releases nowadays. In fact, 92% of the online population uses emojis daily and 78% of people say that using emojis makes you more likable. Similarly, in a survey, 51% of respondents said they’re likely to engage with a brand’s posts if it includes emojis. Lastly, comments and shares increase by about 33% when emojis are present.  

Fortunately, all it takes to implement them into your marketing and content creation is knowing how to use each emoji properly. As of March 2019, there were 3,019 emojis in the Unicode Standard. That includes 1,606 emojis of people and around 150 varieties of the smiley face. This means that your brand must pay attention to what emojis you are using at all times to avoid potential blunders (ie. using a €˜cry laughing’ face when something is sad by accident).  

To test out this new method at the 2022 ISSA Show, try posting about the event on your social media platforms and using some of the most relevant emojis, including: 😁😷💦🔥 🌪  🧬 🦠 🧫 🧪 🌡🧼☢️ ☣️

You can also use emoji stickers on your photos to showcase the energy and charisma of your brand at the event as the photo above shows.  

2. Making memes

Another one of the most relevant and mainstream marketing methods of this generation comes in the form of memes. Although there are countless memes already out there for you to use, one way to stand out online is by creating your very own memes. However, the key to using memes as a brand is knowing what is actually humorous to your audience and the younger generations within it.  

Some good examples of company-made memes can be seen below:  

Bugles created this clever meme and acquired multiple comments and hundreds of likes.

The Beard Club joked about being unshaven after the holidays and received nearly 2,00 likes on this post.

Chipotle made a weird and funny meme that, while silly, gained well over 25,000 likes.  

As you look at these memes and likely chuckle at them in the process, take a closer look at the likes and comments on each of them as well. What you’ll quickly see is that engagement on these memes is impressive, to say the least.  

To start your engaging and fun meme strategy at the ISSA Show North America, try using one of the memes conveniently designed by our team at Cleanfax below.  

3. Harnessing humor

When posting content on your social media, website, or even on brochures and at your ISSA Show booth, you will want to find ways to stand out. One of the best ways to do this in a sometimes tale industry is by harnessing humor and charm.  

A great example of this can be seen by a recent PurAyr booth display at The Experience Las Vegas Trade Show. When their banners and other booth items didn’t get shipped in time, the company didn’t despair. Instead, they took the opportunity to add a little humor to their booth and show the charm of their brand as seen below:  

To add humor to your own brand’s display and social media posts at the ISSA Show, try adding puns to your posts, industry-centric jokes on your SWAG items, and humorous quotes or phrases to your event banners. All of these techniques will add charm and energy to your brand image which will encourage people to share your booth online, talk about you long after they meet with your team, and consider working with you as well.  

4. Tackling TikTok

TikTok is now considered to be the most effective social media platform for engagement and viewership in the world. Knowing this, companies in every industry should begin embracing TikTok in order to leverage its 1 billion active users in their community of potential consumers and company leaders alike.  

To properly use TikTok, you should first begin by personalizing your ‘For You Page’ (FYP). The best way to do this is by following popular accounts related to your industry from day one. For cleaning companies, try looking up #cleantok and #cleaning in order to find accounts that fall within those hashtag topics. Next, you can begin playing around with the filters and sounds on TikTok to pick which ones you want to use for videos and favorite them. Watch what trends other creators in your industry are partaking in to find video ideas that can help you get started. The main thing with TikTok is posting often and tackling as many trends as possible. With these efforts, you can harness a massive audience and grow your follower base to numbers you would never experience on other social media accounts in such a short timeframe.  

For the 2022 ISSA Show, we recommend taking advantage of recent popular trends to create videos of your booth and team. Instead of filming speakers or your products, save those videos for other social media platforms. On TikTok, the key is sharing quick and highly engaging content instead. Something as simple as a fail, funny statement, storytime, or random video idea will garner hundreds of millions of views while a webinar snippet or standard archaic brand advertisement tends to get left behind. Finally, once you have a video created, be sure to add #issashow and #cleanfax to ensure that your post is connected to the right community. This will help you network and connect with other brands at the event that are also on TikTok.  

5. Fun filters

Another exciting modern millennial marketing method comes in the form of the wonderful world of filters. Filters on social media aren’t just something companies should use but rather something they should be creating as well.  

With TikTok specifically, companies can utilize their Effect House to create 2D and 3D filters along with their company logo, event details, and more. These filters can then be used in future videos and by consumers making them a fun and simple way to shamelessly promote your brand. Remember, the more fun the filter, the more it will be utilized by TikTok creators. You can gain even more engagement if your filter is a test, game, or randomizer since people love to try those out no matter what they are. Even something as fun and unique as a €˜which product are you?’ filter from a company can be a great way to connect with your audience on social media and do unique and fun marketing in the process.  

6. Viral videos

Although TikTok is one platform for creating viral videos, you can also utilize Instagram Reels and YouTube for this endeavor. Instagram Reels is very similar to TikTok making it a great platform to share your TikTok videos on as well. Not to mention that Reels users are very active and engage with videos regularly in a similar way to TikTok users.  

When creating a viral video on one of these platforms, you will need to not just pay attention to the topic but the length of the video and the description/hashtags likewise. According to HootSuite, “For viral content, Facebook recommends videos that are less than one minute or stories that are less than 20 seconds in length.” On TikTok, the same average times apply. Similarly, according to Tubics, “Don’t add more than 15 hashtags in a single video. If you have too many hashtags in a video, YouTube will ignore all of them.” These two elements will help you to optimize your content which will make it more enticing to viewers and to the platform itself.  

As for the video topic, it’s all about relatability and value. Whether the video is funny, useful, or shocking, you want to leave the viewer feeling satisfied and entertained. This is what will make them inclined to share the video with others helping it to go viral.  

At the ISSA Show North America, making a viral video of humorous or engaging things that happen while there will help you to connect with the other brands at the event, showcase your involvement in this massive show, and expand your brand all at once. Try finding any of the unique and engaging booths and events at the show to film for viral content.  

7. Creating challenges  

As you begin to grow your social media audience and follower base, engagement and retention will become a big part of your daily marketing methods. To help with this, try creating challenges that your customers and followers can partake in. For instance, Taco Bell offers various challenges to those that have its app while other companies offer challenges and rewards for signing up for events, spending certain amounts, or redeeming rewards. All of these methods are part of a bigger marketing strategy called gamification that plays into our inner desire to win.  

The use of gamification as a brand is highly effective with 30% of companies that use gamification improving registration conversion rates by upwards of 50% and increasing engagement by 48%. To best utilize this method and develop a challenge that people will want to participate in at the ISSA Show, try posting a special reward on your social media for only those that visit your booth. You can also incorporate fun games into your booth or social media challenges like photo contests. Any of these ideas will help you to encourage more people to connect with you at the event and will help promote your brand to gain more followers in the long run.  

8. Silly selfies

The final modern marketing method to try implementing at the ISSA Show North America is the use of silly selfies. For Cleanfax, the €˜Silly Selfie Series‘ at The Experience was a great success.

For other companies, this concept could be the perfect way to connect with our team at Cleanfax as well as the rest of the show’s attendees as well. To participate in our series, try heading over to the membership booth at the ISSA Show and taking fun selfies with other brands as well. These photos will help to humanize your company and show your quirky and creative side. It will also help consumers to feel more connected to you likewise which will boost your brand image and following exponentially.  

After all, 83% of marketers agree that authenticity is important to branding. With a sense of humanity and authenticity at the ISSA Show North America, you can achieve networking and engagement success unlike ever before.  

With all of these modern marketing methods under your belt, you can now begin to revolutionize your brand image and appeal to generations that otherwise wouldn’t know your brand exists.  

As the ISSA Show creeps ever closer, the positive and profitable results of these efforts will begin to shine through and help you to create a brand that reflects the future and all it holds. After all, with a major event such as this monumental show featuring networking, education, and product discovery opportunities, any way to stand out is one worth investing in for the future of your brand and its image across the globe.