Part 2 focuses largely on strategies that take different media and practices into account to create a Millennial-facing program. Part 3 dives into some of the more specific markets and economies that Millennials occupy in significant numbers. Any chapter or section you choose to read, however, will provide you with the steps and information necessary to create effective communications strategies that cater to the increasingly relevant and influential Millennial audience.
Part 1
Getting Started with Marketing to Millennials
Discover the importance of Millennials in terms of their economic impact and their influence.
Provide a clear definition of Millennials that stretches beyond simple age brackets.
Build out segmented, detailed audience pockets and analyze the behaviors of audience members.
Chapter 1
Getting to Know Millennials
❯❯ Understanding the Millennial market
❯❯ Grasping the importance of relationships
❯❯ Reaching Millennials where they are
Familiarizing oneself with the intricacies of Millennials is one of the most crucial steps a marketer can take. Today, personalization is the name of the game. The tailored experience that you want to create starts with getting to know the Millennial mind: how they operate and why they matter so much to your business.
In this chapter, you discover the short and long-term value Millennials bring to your organization. You see how they interact with brands across various media. You also find out ways you can connect with them.
Millennials are consumers, just like the generations that have come before them. However, circumstances, technology, and a changing global landscape have created a unique Millennial mindset.
Discovering Why Millennials Matter
Millennials are valuable because they now make up a major part of the global economy. Therefore, marketers need to focus on this group to develop effective, successful strategies that reach, engage, and convert Millennial consumers.
For our purposes, the term Millennial refers to consumers born between 1980 to 2000. The term Millennial can extend far beyond those age barriers, though, as I discuss in more detail in Chapter 2.
In 2015, Millennials edged out Baby Boomers as the largest demographic in the United States. Immediately, without any additional information about the demographic, they become important to your business. Volume alone makes them a highly coveted group. They’re all independent consumers, and the vast majority have a steady income. There are very few brands that wouldn’t be interested in marketing to the largest group of consumers in the country.
The Millennial cohort provides plenty of opportunities for marketers. As the largest demographic in the American economy, you ignore Millennials at your own peril. Millennials currently have tremendous buying power and over time will become wealthier.
Here are several reasons why the size of the market is a particularly important consideration:
❯❯ Economic influence: As older generations shrink, Millennials have a growing share of the consumer base. This results in the transfer of wealth. If you don’t develop products that appeal to them today, then you risk your business becoming obsolete.
❯❯ Trend setting: Some trends are set intentionally, such as popular challenges that pop up on social media. One example is the Ice Bucket Challenge, which asked individuals to pour a bucket of ice over their heads to raise awareness for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Other trends occur because of the sheer size of this demographic. Thanks to the availability of web data on Millennials, marketers can spot naturally occurring trends. (For more information on the analysis and implementation of data, see Chapter 4.)
❯❯ Fast sharing: The volume of data available and the rate at which it’s shared creates a changing landscape for marketers. You can currently find more online data about Millennials than any poll, questionnaire, survey, or census could collect. Therefore, marketers need to be ready to adapt to the information revealed by thousands of data points.
❯❯ Brand advocacy: The Millennial market has the power to make or break a brand overnight. The power of the people has never been stronger than it is now. Brands need to be transparent and respond to the demands of activist Millennial consumers. You can’t ignore Millennials who work together to aid or defeat a brand. One such example took place during the original Pokémon Go craze, where a small ice cream shop in Washington state was set to close its doors for good. Millennial players stumbled upon the shop, thanks to the game, and then began campaigning to save the business online. These efforts drove enough foot traffic to triple sales and keep the business alive.
Millennials have a tremendous influence over the national and global economy. The Fung Business Intelligence Centre (www.funggroup.com/eng/knowledge/research.php) estimates that by 2020, Millennials will control 30 percent of retail spending in the United States, up from 13.5 percent in 2013. That 30 percent, according to Standard & Poor’s, accounts for about $1.4 trillion per year – and that number will undoubtedly grow.
Millennials are poised to receive the greatest transfer of wealth in economic history. Estimates from major American financial institutions, like Morgan Stanley, and research firms suggest that over the next several decades, Millennials will receive somewhere near $30 trillion from the generations that preceded them. That is a startling figure, and one that undoubtedly whets the appetite of marketers in any field.
To determine where that money is likely going to go, marketers should become aware of the spending habits of Millennials. This knowledge will help them build effectively targeted campaigns.
Goldman Sachs has provided key information about Millennials’ traits that you can see at www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/pages/millennials.
Some of the factors that affect their behavior are as follows:
❯❯ Money is coming in, but it isn’t necessarily going out. Mean income for young Millennials has gone down over the last decade. Millennials are working, but the cost of living has significantly increased. Income indicators like average national minimum wage have gone down. So, while Millennials are currently a significant portion of the national population, their disposable income isn’t significant. This may have a big impact on buying behaviors, even after the transfer of wealth.
❯❯ Millennials carry a huge amount of debt. The cost of education is a big one for Millennials and has a major impact on what they are willing to spend. In the last decade, according to the Federal Reserve, mean student loan balance has more than doubled for young Millennials. This counts as a form of long-term debt. (That is, debt that is not set to be repaid over the next five years.) This has a significant impact on Millennials’ decision-making processes. Because of this debt, buying decisions are