Millennials are an elusive, ‘hard to reach’ market, with little loyalty to traditional marketing channels - or so the theory goes.
However, as millennials hit the workforce and the consumer landscape at scale, rather than making assumptions about their habits and preferences we can now draw conclusions from actual purchasing behavior - and the results are surprising.
This year, Near in partnership with Telstra, completed a comprehensive study on the mobile purchasing behaviour of 30,000 millennials across Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, the United Kingdom and the US. Here are six important insights from the research around millennial shopping behavior which defy the millennial stereotypes.
1. Millennials are big on research: Far from the fickle, impulse driven consumer stereotype, millennials are information-hungry and very deliberate in their purchasing intentions. On average, millennials spend nearly three hours daily on mobile devices researching, pricing, and seeking social recommendations around purchases.
2. Price conscious and savvy: Millennials know that knowledge is power and have grown up in a world where comparative data is readily available. More than 80 percent of millennials will use a mobile device while in-store to comparison shop and deal-search checking Amazon and eBay for quick price references.
3. Timing is critical: Whilst millennials bring a lot of information to bear on their purchasing decisions, good timing plays an important role in driving spend. If marketing teams catch millennial shoppers at just the right time, it has a powerful impact on chances of a consideration from the buyer.
As technology makes it possible to engage consumers where and when they are most interested in receiving purchasing information, location based marketing is emerging as a powerful inclusion in any media buy.
Mobile is without a doubt the extension of a retailer’s storefront, and tactics using location allow brands to send tailored, personalised messages to the consumer.
4. Loyalty & Rewards: Brand loyalty is important to millennials. Millennials appreciate relevant offers from brands - and reward loyalty with loyalty. Nearly 90 percent of millennials join loyalty programs on a regular basis, and most are engaged in five or more programs at once. Bringing the elements of price sensitivity and timing together, if a millennial receives a good price from a retailer on the spot, they are 65 percent more likely to revisit that store within 30 days.
5. Privacy is a Trade Off: More than half of millennials surveyed said they are willing to share their location in order to receive coupons from nearby businesses, while less than half of 35 and older will do the same.
6. Millennials embrace (relevant) advertising: A staggering 95 percent of millennial shoppers surveyed said they wanted their favourite brands to actively ‘sell’ to them on a regular basis. The new generation of locational data allows advertisers to use historical data to create audience segments that can then be even more targeted. This means customers are likely to be more highly engaged with the brand content, because it reflects their interests and preferences.
It’s clear that to engage this important group of next generation consumers, marketers should begin to curate audience segments and generate analytics to respond when millennials are researching product choices. Marketers who ignore the chance to gain a better understanding of millennials and their habits are missing powerful engagement opportunities - and run the risk of being outsmarted by this highly informed group who are certainly doing their research on you and your brand.
Savvy marketers should also deploy reward programs, pricing advantages, and brand ambassadors via social media or a DSP of their choice to implement media campaigns.
Multi Channel Network’s (MCN) partner in the new MCN Location data solution, Near, is at the forefront of this marketing revolution globally and is now bringing its expertise to Australian brands. Near has compiled 8.4 billion individual location footprints for global consumers and has generated a library of success stories on how historical location data has been used to resolve targeting challenges.
MCN Location, in partnership with Near, delivers verified location data from 15 million unique mobile device IDs to help agencies highly segment target audiences. Near has currently mapped over 1.5 million points of interest in Australia. These cover a very wide range of locations, as well as time-based events, and include travel expos, music festivals, the Formula 1, State of Origin matches or Circular Quay for the start of Sydney to Hobart race.
For customers, the benefit of this location based technology is in receiving advertisements that are optimised to their own interests and habits. For advertisers, the service is opening up a world of opportunity for audience engagement – both in real-time and across a longer timeframe.
By Suzie Cardwell, MCN digital partnerships and product development director.