The stars have realigned and retailers are noticing. The highly regarded Baby Boomer generation is no longer in the spotlight among marketers, and with that will come a change in the status quo.
The elusive Millennial generation is bigger and harder to win over than previous generations. But, the trouble just may be worth it – they have been called the largest and most influential generation of consumers ever.
The some 80 million Millennials were born between the years 1977 and 2000 – or between 13 and 36 years of age.
In 2013, U.S. Millennials will spend $1.3 trillion and will spend more than any other generation by 2017 as they continue to enter the beginning and middle stages of their earning years.
Millennials are a diverse generation that encompasses many segments that have different needs, mindsets and preferences, which can make marketing difficult as each segment requires marketing efforts that fit their particular perspective.
Customer analytic insights will be essential for retailers, as it will allow them to identify the differences and subtleties within these individual segments – and therefore help to develop effective targeted marketing campaigns and communication styles by:
- Creating Consumer Profiles: predictive marketing and market planning models should include a complete profile of a retailer’s potential and qualified Millennial customer, including, demographic, psychographic and other behavioral insights that will allow for a more full understanding of their customer.
- Target Qualified Millennials: by leveraging the consumer profile, a household level direct marketing model can be developed enabling retailers to target the specific consumer households and workforce concentrations most valuable to them – within each stores' drive-time trade area.
- Optimize Media Mix: a media preference analysis, based on the consumer profile can allow retailers to identify media preferences and better understand the influence of each media type. This analysis provides a media preference index across a variety of media dimensions, including different media channels, dayparts and content. This will make media buys and promotional efforts of all types more cost effective.
As retailers are increasingly faced with daunting challenges in a progressively crowded marketplace, customer analytics can help your brand stand out – even as the number of media choices multiplies. A better understanding of your Millennial customer can deliver benefits across the marketing continuum and help you tailor offers to this specific segment of your consumer base.
For retailers who don’t have quality customer data, Buxton has the ability to leverage credit card expenditure data, which can be used in our predictive modeling solutions allowing us to build a complete customer profile and define trade areas.