Engaging Gen Z with Public Power Websites
Engaging with Gen Z customers and members means understanding their unique browsing habits. This generation seeks content that is not only informative but also relatable and visually engaging. They look for breaks in monotonous ‘walls of words’ and expect a personal connection that resonates with their experiences.
A Local Touch to Connect with Your Audience
Recognizing this, our approach with custom footer illustrations is an innovative solution. Take, for instance, the Wiregrass Electric Cooperative’s website. The footer illustration here masterfully features the state fairgrounds and other local landmarks, providing a visually appealing break from text-heavy content. This not only captures the essence of the community but also establishes a personal connection with Gen Z visitors who value local culture and familiar sights. Leanna Thesken, a Gen Z member of our team here in Powerful, talks about this as she dives into the feeling aspect of our Illustrated Footers.
“When we are in the design stage of an Illustrated Footer, we work with those who live in the service territory, we want their opinions and input because they are the ones who know better than anyone!” says Leanna.
When site visitors see these landmarks, they realize that you aren’t some cold corporate entities who doesn’t care about their customers. By integrating such tailored illustrations, we offer a blend of locality and creativity, making every scroll a journey through community pride and engagement – a perfect way to resonate with a generation that values authenticity and visual storytelling.
Get to the Point with Content
Gen Z loves to have things at the tip of the cap, thanks to emerging social media sites like TikTok or X, we love instant gratification. We can get insight from Alec Fore, our youngest team member and recent college graduate. Alec says he gets his news from sites like X, formerly Twitter, or Reddit. And when I asked him for advice he would give a communicator he had this to say, “the best advice I’d give to a communicator trying to reach me, would be to focus on easy/quick to read points that are highly visualized, as a wall of text isn’t really going to intrigue me or most of younger site visitors as their attention span is a lot lower than older generations.”
This is where our content migration is such a key piece of your new website. Having the same information that you may have on your current site updated to please those who are reading it is such a valuable tool to possess. At Powerful, we can take the same information and pull out the key factors in a version we like to call High-touching a page. In this we take the most important parts of the webpage and give it a bulletin point feel to it. Taking it a step further, we also have a visualized page.
This is taking that same information that is in the standard wall of words, and that high touch page, but making it much more visually appealing to read. We add animations, bolded text, iconography, and colors to it. This draws in the site visitor and keeps them there reading everything that you want to portray to your reader.
Get In and Get Out with Bill Pay Login Integration
When we visit websites, we don’t like search for long periods of time to find what were looking for. I know that I am busy, paying my bills at the start of each month is the last thing on my mind, but it has to be done. So, the faster I can get through this task the better the overall experience is.
A friction point of visiting a site when I have to pay a bill is searching or hunting for the login area. We try to make the experience as seamless and easy as possible. That is where the integration of a login box on the home page is crucial. Opening a webpage to see where to log-in and see where to pay your bills is refreshingly different. Partnering with payment systems like NISC’s SmartHub platform, we can allow site visitors to log in and manage their accounts straight from the home page.
Stay Informed and Looped In
Another key element to engaging with Gen Z is meeting them where they are, but more importantly send them reminders through texts. When Gen Z members of your service territory need to know something, we like to get told, but even more than that, we like to choose what we get told. Like Caleigh Pickard, our senior project manager and fellow Gen Z coworker says, “I like to have notifications sent to me, whether that is social media or my favorite brands to keep up to date with what is in. It helps me keep up with the things I want to stay in touch with, it just happens in the background without me having to ask for it.”
With our web app, LoopedIn, site visitors are able to subscribe to certain updates to your websites, whether that is added events, job listings, or even just added stories to your news section of your website. With the LoopedIn feature, you will see a heightened engagement among your younger audience.
Mobile First Approach
As we think about where Gen Z members are accessing your website, we have to look at data that could give us an in depth look into their viewing behavior. We know that around 80% of millennials pay their online bills using their mobile phone, so making sure that a website is built with this in mind is imperative. Here at Powerful, we look to build a new website with mobile in mind. We ensure that each website is built to fit comfortably with each screen size, so that even if a site visitor views your website on a mobile device, they can read it easily and comfortably. This will guarantee a pleasant viewing experience for not only Gen Z but all site visitors.
Your Future
Reaching Gen Z within public power is crucial; the younger generations within your community are the future, and investing in them should be done sooner rather than later. With a powerfully designed website, we ensure that we can give you the best tools to keep up with this generational shift.
