Are Millennials into e-mailing or not? Marketing minds want to know. A recent study has revealed that 28 percent of Generation Y recipients found email received from companies to be relevant, while 32 percent had no opinion.
Respondents from the study, which was conducted by the Participatory Marketing Network (PMN) and Pace Universitys Lubin School of Business Interactive and Direct Marketing Lab, also said they would potentially welcome direct brand interactions via email, but want more control over what and how much they receive.
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Create automated relevance. Behavioral marketing works, but when youre marketing to Millennials, youve got to be faster and more precise, Wilson said. Millennials are almost wired to block out advertising and marketing. They are capable of finding what they want when they want it, so you have to be fast and give them something relevant as soon as you see a specific hand-raising activity, he said. A hand-raising activity is when an individual places an action or request to follow up on a particular product or service.
Dont stop emailing. As a marketer, you might think that if Millennials dont love email you should be sending less-frequent messages. Thats simply not the case, Kocsis said. You dont want to be communicating every day, but you definitely need a cadence strategy so youre touching your list more often than once a quarter, she said.
Get personal about the right things. There are differences in what youll need to know to market to Gen X, for example, and Gen Y. For one thing, Gen Y Is less likely to answer personal questions about what they buy and why, Wilson said. Instead of asking how Gen Y thinks about and uses your products and services, Wilson suggests asking about whats important to them in the buying cycle. Is it having a personal reference? Ask how often they purchase rather than what they are purchasing.
Avoid the one-off email. Relationships are important in marketing and even more so for Millennials, Kocsis said. Instead of sending a promotion, send advice. Something meaningful, smart and educational, she said.