NEW YORK— Marketing to life stages has become even more critical as the 80 million strong Millennial generation continues to evolve from budding buyer to spending powerhouse.
“Marketers have been too impatient for the Millennials to come into their own. They failed to realize you have to think about life stage in addition to generation,” said Marsha Everton, corporate director and advisor, AIMsights Group.
In the past five years, for example, many Millennials have aged out of emerging adulthood, a new lifestage identified in the last 20 years, according to Everton.
“The youth life stage used to be considered to age 20, but because people don’t achieve those key milestones until age 30 now, especially for the group that has college education, more income and spending power, this age of 20 to 30 is now being called emerging adulthood,” she explained.
Today, Millennials with the most spending power have entered into the full adult stage, preparing for marriage, home ownership and having children, all equating to prime housewares buying years.
This older Millennial demands respect, Everton said, and to meet that demand brands have to market with Millennials, not to them. “Everything has become a two-way street,” she said. “Listen, and make sure they understand that you are listening. Listen more and then respond.”
Michael Osborne, president and founder of SmarterHQ, a multichannel behavioral marketing platform, agreed, noting that personalized messaging across channels is key to swaying this savvy shopper.
“If you deliver the right message to the right buyer over that life stage evolution, you are going to be able to maintain them over time,” he said. “If the messages are not delivered to the right person at the right time and not personalized to that individual, it will be ignored.”
Dare To Be Digital
The advancement of technology is another factor in the evolution of the generation, and a major differentiator between Millennials and their predecessors. Technology helped shape Millennials, analysts said, and as the generation evolves so does the technology around them.
“The biggest change over the past few years has been the amount of digital distraction and the ease of purchasing,” Osborne said. “It changes the dynamic of how they look for and how they are exposed to products, and brands have to do a lot more to break through the noise and then capture and maintain attention.”
However, the same technology that gives the Millennial buyer access to information anywhere and at anytime is also available to brands and should be utilized, he noted.
“Brands are tracking their behavior online, they can see what they are looking at and purchasing and can understand browsing and buying behavior. Then, they can start to drive predictions,” he said. “If brands have all of this information and don’t use it, it’s a serious miss. When they have the information and use it poorly it’s a bigger miss. When they have it and use it really well, they are able to adapt to the change in their consumer and see a lot of success.”
Erik Carlson, marketing manager at air cleaner brand Blueair, noted, “Technology has already helped us, and not only with customer feedback but with air quality information. We now know that VOC’s and odors are a much larger problem than initially thought, and now we are developing products with that in mind. It’s the communication with the technology that allows us to bring that to our product development.”
Brands are getting smarter and offering their Millennial consume reasons to give them more data, Osborne said, but a lot of that data continues to live in silence.
“It’s up to the brands and retailers to actually prioritize it, make the investment and put the hard work into making it something great for their customer,” he said.
Socially Savvy
With the advancement of technology and access to diversely styled social avenues, Millennials have evolved into social media mavens over the past five years. In order for brands to stay relevant, fight through the noise and grow, marketing through social media is a must, analysts agreed.
“Word of mouth has always been the most important part of marketing and social media is word of mouth on steroids,” Everton said.
Blueair’s Carlson noted that reviews and word of mouth on social media are the most important factors that Millennials use to make their decision. “We’ve partnered with lifestyle and wellness experts that allow us to use their trustworthiness to expand our brand to others through social media. Consumers can see these experts using the product in their own life, and we’re taking advantage.”
Robust content and transparency is key when it comes to social media marketing, Everton said, and brands should make it clear where a product was made, how it was made and whether it’s safe, keeping in mind that, “Millennials have a pretty strong definition of safe.”
Content for decision-making also helps support these goals. Since Millennials are more willing to trust peer reviews than they are corporate marketing, the promotion of consumer-to-consumer communication is pivotal.
In-Store Invitation
Even with the explosion of digital marketing, half of Millennials still prefer shopping in-store, according to SmarterHQ research. As retailers and brands adapt to the increased use of digital and online shopping methods, they could miss the mark if they ignore in-store opportunities.
The in-store experience is key, analysts agreed, and must somehow be pleasant, if not fun, to attract the Millennial consumer.
“The experience that they deliver is the differentiator between being loyal to that brand over time versus ignoring it,” Osborne said.
However, creating an exciting in-store experience is not without its challenges. “In retail it’s really tough because the primary measure of satisfaction in a retail experience is still, ‘how fast can I check out?’ It’s really cool to go to the place that has the bar, but you will get negative reviews if people have to wait too long in line,” Everton noted.
Product diversification in-store is also important, and retailers can maintain their Millennial consumer while attracting new consumers to the brand, Carlson noted. “Products used to come out every five to seven years, but now it’s every year or two years. Bringing in those new products keeps Millennials coming back. But, it’s more than just getting more products from the same players, they have to give their Millennial consumers more options,” he said.
Looking forward, Osborne said the next wave of retail will see the successful utilization of data that allows brands to understand consumer behavior across channels.
In addition, Carlson noted that the future will bring much more cross functional advertising. “Brands are very weary to go into business with other brands, but I think in the near future it is going to be much more collaborative, and technology is going to play a huge role,” he said.
In terms of marketing to lifestyle, Everton noted the next chapter for Millennials will focus around being parents to older children. “A lot more of Millennial decisions will become influenced by their children. Generation Z is going to have some power along with Millennials,” she said.