Regardless of what you may think of them, we are now at a juncture in time when they’re turning into the primary contributors in society. With the average age of the country increasing, businesses are coming to realise that their marketing messages need to now be more focused on millennials rather than the generation X or Y. However, millennials are diverse, dynamic, and in some eyes even highly eclectic. This can make marketing to millennials very challenging.
People who have experience marketing to millennials will even tell you that they’re incredibly demanding and particular about both, the marketing message as well as what they’re promoting. At the same time, there’s a huge opportunity in this target group. Millennials were born and brought up in the age of technology. This means they’re very proficient with all modern marketing platforms.
Effectively, marketing to millennials maybe difficult and highly specific but it brings huge rewards when done right. However, studies have revealed various ways of getting through to this diverse and dynamic target group. We’ll pinpoint a few here.
Marketing to Millennials: Emails Remain the Best Channel of Communication
As per a research conducted by SendinBlue, more than 60 percent of the surveyed millennials stated that their preferred channel of communication is emailing. Their answer was specific to how they communicate with retailers as opposed to communication with everyone. It is common for businesses to believe that text, WhatsApp, and even SnapChat are what millennials will prefer because that is what they’re seen to be using all the time. However, that use is personal. When it comes to business communication, millennials prefer emails.
This is good news because, across the board, email marketing is considered to be the best marketing technique in terms of conversion. Conversion refers to getting the receiver to do what you want. While most marketing techniques have conversion rates near five to ten percent, email marketing tends to be higher at around 15 or even 20 percent.
As a result, Returns on Investment (ROIs) from email marketing are higher. Since millennials prefer emailing anyway, putting in place an in-depth email marketing campaign can be beneficial for businesses. Email marketing doesn’t require heavy-duty investment either, which makes it suitable for small and medium scale businesses as well.
Marketing to Millennials: Perks and Sops Rule The Roost
Millennials are savvy. They may have attention span problems but they’re very perceptive when they focus on something. Therefore, marketing gimmicks that don’t offer anything tangible and are based on strategic workarounds don’t work on millennials. Millennials look for tangible benefits when they open their emails. This means real perks and sops. In other words, discounts, promotions, and free shipping are what millennials looking for.
Therefore, regardless of what your marketing objective is, you need to tie it in with some financial perks and sops. For example, if the objective is increasing sales, you can do it through discounts. Similarly, if references are what you need, start a promotion. Even when looking for reviews, if you offer special offers, you’ll get more joy.
Marketing to Millennials: More Power to the Consumer Is the Way to Go
There was a time when businesses used to take pride in the fact that they “created” demand for their products. The implication there was that made the customer do what they wanted rather than doing what they wanted i.e. they had the power over their customers. This is not possible with the millennials because they don’t like to be led. They prefer to lead and will leave a business that doesn’t allow them that by the wayside. A good example of this is that millennials don’t just buy a product or avail a service because there’s an offer on it. They will buy what they need or use a service that they require.
When a business gives them an offer on what they need, they’ll give that business preference. In practical terms, this means that businesses can’t offer discounts and offers on specific products and services. Instead, they need to offer discounts and offers on full categories even the entire site. The study backs this premise as around 59 percent of respondents said that they take actions when such discounts are offered.
Marketing to Millennials: Genuine Marketing Messages Have Staying Power
There’s another benefit of marketing to millennials by giving them more power and volition. This is the fact that the messages have more staying power. Generally speaking, marketing messages don’t stay in consumers’ mind and are forgotten as consumers move onto other things. This isn’t the case with email messages with the right content targeted at millennials.
As per the study, more than 50 percent of respondents said that they tend to pull up an email that contained the right content even if they’re visiting a physical store. Therefore, if a business offers a decent discount and promotional codes in the email, then the millennial is likely to access that email, even if he is at a physical store much later in time.
Marketing to Millennials: The Marketing Campaign Needs To Be Strategic
Marketing to millennials isn’t all rubies and roses. It also has its inherent pitfalls. One of these is the fact that millennials are very sensitive to spam. They not only have the ability to recognise spam marketing from a kilometre away but also a deeply entrenched hatred for it. Therefore, when millennials get spam marketing emails from any business, the business takes a massive hit to its image in that individual’s eyes. So, while emails are millennials’ choice of marketing platform, mass and generic mailing does not.
This is where strategy comes into play. To get millennials on board, you need a strong email marketing campaign. After all, more than 70 percent of millennials state that they have no problems taking action in an email. That’s conversion, folks! While you need a strong email marketing campaign, you also need to personalise it and pay special attention to the timing and frequency of the messages.
The strategy is also important to instill authenticity to the email messages. With strategy, comes target audience analysis and with that comes more personalisation. Personalisation cannot be implemented without authenticity. This is why the email marketing campaign needs to be strategic.
Emails are the easiest way for a business to get access to customers from the millennial generation. The email content obviously needs to be tailored to their generation as well. While emails will help you get more millennials to convert, you’ll still need to get access to their email addresses i.e. customer acquisition.
The best avenues for this are providing good quality content on your website or blog and using social media platforms. Millennials consume a lot of content and, most of the time, they get access to this content via social media. There is synergy between social media, blogs, and email marketing which can be used very effectively in marketing to millennials.
Leave a Reply