Modern marketing is incredibly diverse, with traditional and digital media giving businesses more opportunities to spread the word than ever before. While social media and local search are great ways to reach young consumers, email marketing remains an important piece of the puzzle.
There are lots of ways to engage millennials through email, as long as you stay away from tired old formats and techniques. While social media is a key driver of consumer trends and influence, it’s also oversaturated, fickle, and unbelievably messy.
Email is more serious and productive than social media, which makes it a great tool for businesses that want to influence decisions and drive action.
Let’s take a look at what you should focus on to reach and engage millennials with email.
It’s all about the perks
Despite its diminishing importance in other spheres of life, email remains the preferred channel for millennials to communicate with retailers. While text and social marketing is also important, email remains on top for one important reason – perks. Whether it’s loyalty discounts, specials, bonuses, or vouchers, email is the most practical and effective way to offer personal perks.
- Unlike social media, you can easily segment and customize your messages with email, and offer different perks for different demographics.
- Email is personal, easy to use, and checked all the time.
- The content delivered through email is easy to download and capable of being integrated with other media and promotions.
Color, movement, and mobility
The internet of 2019 is not the same as the internet of 2009. Social media rules, bandwidth is growing all the time, and text doesn’t have the same appeal it once did.
In order to reach out and engage with millennials, you need to speak with them using their own native language and technology preferences.
- While persuasive text and innovative copywriting is still key, you also need colorful images, animations, and videos.
- Don’t try selling directly to millennials, entertain them and your response rates will improve.
- Mobile integration is also key, so don’t forget to format your media-rich emails for cell phones or use a service that specializes in mobile marketing.
It’s easy to add images and graphics yourself, or you can use an automated email service that creates eye-catching messages based on existing templates. If you’re really serious about making an impact, you can go the extra mile and call in the pros to produce a mobile-friendly email marketing campaign with moving images and detailed branding.
Just-in-time messages
Just-in-time marketing is about agile and contextual content that meets consumer needs on a real-time basis. Rather than sending out bulk messages at a designated time, this form of marketing tunes into the needs of customers to create and deliver content when it’s needed. Email is the perfect platform for just-in-time marketing because it allows you to send personal messages at highly specific times throughout the buying cycle.
- People are looking for different things at different times, with clever marketers able to capitalize on this by changing what they say and how they say it.
- Email enables a focused and narrow marketing perspective that works through depth rather than width.
- While email marketing is still associated with dodgy bulk emails and massive lists, the real power of this tool is its ability to target specific people across regulated time periods.
Follow up, track, and respond
Digital technology gives you the ability to track consumers and create follow-up communications based on specific user actions. For example, you can integrate email marketing with paid ads on Google and Facebook, tracking movements from clicks and likes and sending out valuable content based on user interests.
- Emails are also powerful when you need to re-engage customers after a period of inaction. For example, email messages are the perfect way to respond to abandoned shopping baskets, or give people a gentle nudge if they haven’t completed their regular monthly order.
- More than any other marketing tool, email gives you the ability to create automated and tailored message sequences in response to user actions.
Get personal
When it comes to marketing, millennials are somewhat jaded. What they lack in years they make up for in experience, with a personal touch often needed to break down the barriers. Email messages are a great way to get up close and personal, with modern services able to segment your audience based on user data and speak to them directly on their own terms.
- There are lots of ways to get personal with email, including content based on recent purchases, recommended purchases, micro sales for specific consumer groups, and time-limited sales for people who live in a certain area.
- Some of the oldest ideas are still the best, after all, who doesn’t love a happy birthday message with a free gift?
Email marketing is a powerful way to reach millennials and inspire them to take action. More than a form of mass communication, email marketing allows you to go deep with automation and personality.
