Email Key for Connecting With Millennials in 2018
The new year is here, and the future is already looking bright for retailers as U.S. year-end holiday season sales increased nearly 5 percent compared to 2016. While the holiday season traditionally has a major impact on closing revenue numbers, the start of the year is no time to rest. The months ahead deserve just as much attention. Retailers need to focus on getting the word out to consumers and seizing the opportunity for this year’s shopping trends at large, whether it's January, June or December.
The good news is there’s plenty of time for retail marketers to adequately prepare an effective customer acquisition strategy for 2018.
SendinBlue recently conducted an online survey of 750 U.S. millennials on their shopping habits and communication preferences with retailers. The insights gleaned from the study equip marketers with a necessary blueprint to successfully tackle the year ahead and connect with this key demographic. For advice straight from the horse’s mouth, check out these three tips.
Email: It’s a Fine Line, But You Can’t Afford to Miss Out
If you take nothing else away from the survey findings, take this: Email isn't dead, it’s thriving. What matters most is how and when to use it.
Email is hands down the preferred millennial communication channel for engaging with retailers, capturing votes from over 60 percent of the survey respondents. The closest competitors, text messaging and social media, were neck and neck for a distant second place — both receiving around 13 percent of respondents’ votes.
We know millennials still love email, but now we also know they’re highly sensitive to it. Nearly 60 percent of surveyed millennials said that the No. 1 way they lose patience and ultimately loyalty with a retailer is receiving too many emails that they viewed as spam.
Essentially, millennial consumers want to be able to engage with brands, but they don’t want you to waste their time or their precious inbox space.
The trick to knowing what to send them is fortunately crystal clear: promotions and coupons. A whopping 60 percent of millennials said they were most likely to take action from email marketing content that contains sitewide or product category sales. You can also try email coupons; it’s the primary way millennials leverage email when in a physical store.
The Desert Island Question
If you’re spinning your marketing wheels trying to decide if you should focus efforts on in-store or online promotions for the 2018 calendar year, spin no more.
We asked millennials a new twist on the famous desert island question: “If you had to choose one method to do 100 percent of your shopping this year, which would it be?” The answer? Online, of course.
Nearly 60 percent said they would forgo a trip to a brick-and-mortar store in favor of its digital counterpart.
Give ’Em What They Want, When They Want It
What do millennials want to see from marketers when it’s time to shop? Most survey respondents said they prefer to see tangible perks like free shipping or two-day delivery in their inbox.
There’s good news when it comes to giving millennials what they want, when they want it: they don’t forget it. Millennials are a loyal breed when it comes to their favorite brands. Seventy-five percent say the best way to keep them coming back for more is to offer them these quick, wallet-saving perks.
Take these insights to heart and kick-start 2018 with a solid year-long strategy to keep millennials coming back for more. Both your revenue and customer engagement numbers will thank you.
Armand Thiberge is the CEO of SendinBlue, an email marketing and marketing automation software provider.
