The Lunch Pail

With the Millennial generation starting to come of age and get their first "real job," there is quite a bit of discussion about how to market to a Millennial and capture their first real paychecks. In my eyes, the problem with this is that many of the people that give advice on millennial marketing, and claim to be experts, aren't from the Millennial generation. Well, I am a Millennial. Who knows what Millennials want better than someone from their own generation?

I’m not claiming to be an expert on Millennial marketing. But, I have been (and will continue to) conduct an informal marketing survey of my own. My survey is not traditional by any means – I know traditional isn’t something my friends do. The survey method involved asking open ended questions to my friends about how they like to be reached, along with some of the ways that they stay in contact with their friends, and how they like to receive marketing messages. I also did my “survey” in a unique manner by utilizing Facebook, in person interviews, and simple phone conversations to best engage my audience. I found that what my friends are saying is not exactly in line with what the experts are telling everyone.

First off, the Millennial generation likes to have the choice of listening to you or not. Ads have always been in our lives, and we’re masters at tuning things out. In our minds, ads aren’t that interesting, so it doesn’t matter how clever they are – we can tune them out. We think that our time is important and find ourselves constantly multi-tasking just to keep up with everyday life. To keep up, marketers need methods that keep our lives simple, and catch us while we are on the go in quick and extremely relevant ways. We’re constantly texting instead of placing simple calls, because it seems to keep up with our hectic lifestyle better. In fact the Millennial generation seems to think that texting while driving is the best way to reach them. That’s something you won’t see the experts mention.

The focus must shift from the actual creativity of the message to how and when the message is being sent. Most Millennials I know have their phone on them 24/7 and find time to send or receive a quick message throughout the day. As much as I personally hate to admit it, we’re a captive audience while driving. If marketers reached us using a simple SMS message and a direct call to action — while we’re driving, walking to class, or even walking around the mall — I’d bet that conversion rates would increase. The challenge is the opt-in process and keeping that simple enough to respond while doing other things.

With so much to talk about, it can’t all go into one post. I’ll be posting more insights into marketing to the Millennial generation from a Millennial and her friends in the future. Stay tuned!