Who are the “Millennials” ?
Wikipedia suggest that Millennials – also called “Generation Y” are those born between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s.
The “Millennials” word was used for the first time in 1991 by two American historians Neil Howe and William Strauss.
According to the Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research in 2015, the millennials generation is the biggest in the US history. Indeed there were 95 million of Millennials, 77 million of Baby boomers and 61 million of Generation X. This huge number of Millennials can be explained by the fact that Millennials are rising into their adulthood and most of them are today between 18 and 35 years old.
By the way The Pew Research center has established a statistic concerning the number of millennials until 2050.
As we can see, the number of Millennial is growing and growing up. In 2015 there were 75 million millennial and the millennial population is projected to peak in 2036 at 81 million. The Pew Research Center explained this huge number “With immigration adding more numbers to its group than any other”.
Characteristics
Pew Research Social and Demographic Trends said that “millennials are collaborative, self-expressive, more ethnically and racially diverse than older generations, better-educated and more liberal than older generations, optimistic, mobile, and social.”
According to the Brookings institution “the diversity define the millennials generation”. Most of millennials were born during the immigration period in the US.
This figure shows differents Race-Ethnic profiles for Age Groups in 2015 in US. We can notice that more the generation change, more there’s racial diversity. Most of the Baby Boomer generation are white at 75 % whereas in the millennials generation there are only 55.8%.
Furthermore Millennials grew up with technology and have never known a world without them. That’s the reason why we can also call millennials as “digital natives”
Millennials love their Mobile Devices
According to Quicksprout, 91% of millennials are regular Internet users. The millennials generation has indeed grown with the use of mobile device such as tablet, smartphone, iPod, and laptop. Most of them use their desktop less and less because we consider that everything can be done in our mobile device.
Smartphone everytime
When it comes to smartphones, millennials are more likely than their elders to want a smartphone device, and more likely than teens to have the option of buying one according to Emarketer.com
According to Comscore in a 2016 survey in the USA they found that 95% of millennials use a mobile phone, while 25% own a tablet. We can explain this number by the fact that a smartphone combine everything they can do in their other mobile device.
Thanks to a smartphone application, called “Breakfree” which is an application use to see how much you spend time on your smartphone in one day, I spend per day almost 4 hours on my mobile phone. I mostly use Safari (25%) which is the iPhone research engine, then 20% Youtube, 15% messenger, and 10% Snapchat.
TSN said that millennials “spends 3.2 hours a day on their mobile devices – the equivalent of 22.4 hours – almost a whole day – every week.”
Smartphone everywhere
This Graph from Coupofy show that in every situation, millennials are using their mobile phone.
According to the comscore, “Mobile has quickly moved from being just another way to consume content to a platform that helps us accomplish more all day, every day.”
Indeed our smartphone is a daily tool and we can use it to do everything such as this statistic from by Coupofy shows :
Millennials social and connected
Be connected with friends and family through the social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat. According to the inSites Consulting, there are more than 8 out of 10 millennials internet users who are members of at least 1 social network. 80% of millennials log on social media every day.
Millennials use social networks every time, here’s we can see the difference between the previous generation and the millennials. This graph come from Insites consulting which made a survey to know the place and occasion where millennials logs on social media. It has been compared with the previous generation. As we can see millennials find a time for logging on social media. For example in a bar, even if they’re hang out with their friends, 17% of millennials still stay connected to their social network.
This chart from Statisca determine the most popular social media apps among U.S. millennials in June 2014. Facebook is used by 75.6% of American, then comes Instagram with 43.1% and finally we can see that the number of users in snapchat is bigger than twitter.
Why is Snapchat so popular among millennials ?
The Business insider asked questions to a lot of millennials between the ages of 18 and 26 concerning the use of snapchat, and why they like this application.
Here’s what I can conclude about the differents answers :
Most of millennials really like snapchat because it’s a cool way to share instantly what you’re doing, it’s like a “vlog” of your day, and that you can put on your snapchat story. It’s a good way to share your daily life with your friends, having news from them. One millennial said that “Facebook allows you to upload images, but who wants to see 30 images and a few videos of a concert or you playing with your dog? “.
Phenomenon of phablet
What is it a phablet? Wikipedia says that a phablet can be classified as a category of smartphone. The size device is between the tablet and the smartphone. Flurry analytics has categorized different device with their screen sizes. A mobile device which the screen size is between 5 and 6, 9 inches such as for example the Samsung galaxy note or
the iPhone 6s are considered as a phablet.
Phablets are the fastest-growing smartphone category. According to this statistic from the IDC published in Ignited website, there’s less and less tablet sales.
Ignited says that we can explain this tablets stagnation by the fact that people don’t often change their tablet and don’t buy a new one if they’ve already have this device. On the contrary, the phablet is growing faster since 2013 and is projected to sell about 592. 9 million of phablet in 2018. The phablet is a perfect mix between the tablet and the smartphone.
More and more people use this device. Indeed according to this graphic from Flurry Analytics, published in Social times which represents the Time Spent on Mobile Grows in 2014-2015, we can see that the use of phablet has increased at 334% in 2015. We can make a link between this graph and the last one, about the phablets sales. It confirms this phablet phenomenon: People buy it and spend their whole time on this device. We can notice that people spend less time on full size tablets
This huge number of time spent on phablet is explained by the growth of using apps on device and Flurry statistics, published in Techcrunch explain that they discovered that “phablet users were even more engaged with apps than those on smaller smartphones.” For example, we can see on this graph the growth in News & Magazine apps on phablets was 5.34x that of all devices; Flurry explained that by the fact that millennials don’t use TV and desktop computers anymore to get news.
How to target Millennials ?
Why marketers are interested in Millennials ?
Millennials are not brand obsessed. Indeed according to the Rackspace blog, 63% of millennials will purchase non-favorite brand on sale and 56% switch brands for coupons. And 50% will return to brands they trust and get to know them.
Here’s some advice to target millennials :
Quicksprout advice marketers who want to reach millennials to use mobile marketing .
“Everything is about mobile. If your marketing isn’t mobile-first, it’s ineffective with or invisible to this generation. “ – Quicksprout
Indeed traditional media advertising such as TV, Radio, don’t really work with our generation. Millennials are always connected to their smartphone, so you have to adapt your marketing.
1- Be connected on social media
- 52% check out brands on facebook/and or twitter
According to Yahoo, 63% of millennials would be more likely to “check-in” to a business on social channels if it meant they’d receive a coupon or discount.
You can also think about doing something like “sharing with 5 of your friends on Facebook or Twitter. ” Then Millennials will talk about the brand, so it can be a great opportunity to get sales increase.
Loyalty program or reward
According to the Harris Poll, 77% of millennials already do or are willing to participate in rewards and loyalty programs and 73% of smartphone users are interested in using their mobile devices to interact with brands’ loyalty programs.
2- Create a mobile app
According to the 2016 Mobile App Report from Comscore, 87% of people spend their mobile time on an application mobile. This is a really huge number!
That’s the reason why, marketers have to create an mobile application for their brand. Here an example of a good mobile application : Miss Guided who launched their app on the 8th March
According to Spotstudio, Miss guided said that “they have built the app based on 2 key attributes : convenience, and engagement. ”
“Customers will always be logged into a personalized and addictive shopping experience” – Miss Guided
Millennials seek creative and cool shopping experiences and are already the most responsive age group to mobile ads. This app is really creative especially because Miss Guided include a page “Swipe to Hype” where clothes are features and and allow the user to show off their taste. It’s like a tinder-shopping experience.
3- Use influencers
It is true that nothing can replace real professional’s advice, but some people like bloggers/youtubers can influence your customer buying. This enthusiasm for Bloggers and especially for Youtubers is that they are really closed to their community.
Youtube Videos and blogs are an influential tool, because many people who are looking for reviews concerning a product are going to check specialists blogs or check videos which talk about the product. Some Youtubers and bloggers are becoming reals advisers and their blogs or videos are communication vehicles for brands. Brands send products to this bloggers/youtubers to make them test the product and make a review on their social platform. They transpose their experiences with the brand.
We can consider them as a real marketing tool for brands because it can increase your sales considerably.
For example, Influenth talked about a collaboration between a beauty Youtuber and a cosmetic low cost brand “Adopt by Reserve naturelle“. This brand made a partnership with the beauty Youtuber “Sandrea26“, follow by more than one million internet users. The brand created an ephemeral makeup collection, imagined by the Youtuber. To launch her collection, a meet-up had been organized in Lyon in the brand’s shop, and then she could show cased her new collection and meet some fans. The evening after the meet up, the Facebook page of the brand published a message which said that all products from this partnership are out of stock and the brand were not prepare to this success.
Reviews are really important
This chart come from Quicksprout blog and show to marketers that millennials are not going to buy something that they don’t know. They need to get advice before purchasing.
“ This generation decides where to eat based on Instagram pictures, chooses hair stylists from Facebook and has their groceries delivered to their door based on a recommendation from a friend. »
A great way to market to this generation is to make sure your online reviews and customer experiences are really good!
MELANIE'S DIGITAL MARKETING 