Kerri Pollard, Chief Revenue Officer of Honey, a valued LinkConnector affiliate partner, delivered an outstanding keynote during AM Days last month. The session was focused on the data Honey collects on an aggregate basis on millennials and their shopping patterns – resulting in actionable takeaways for merchants to attract and acquire millennial shoppers.
Millennials (born early 1980s to early 2000s)…
- Go online 71% of the time to compare prices (vs. 55%)
- Visit 50% more pages prior to buying and seek out savings more often
- Are 47% more likely to make an impulse purchase (vs. 34%)
- Spend 52% more on apparel and 24% more on food delivery
What merchants should do…
- Use homepage incentives
- Don’t make users dig for info
- Make it (process) easy to buy
- Use a sales count down to incentivize
Millennials…
- Are married and living in own household only 23% of the time
- Are unemployed 13.8% of the time and have an average of $28,950 in student loan debt
- Desire access vs. ownership (Uber v. own their own car)
- Spend 83% more on entertainment.
What merchants should do…
- Always entertain, surprise and delight
- Use of points, progress and recognition are important
- Use of games incentivize millennials to continue
Millennials…
- Are 68% more influenced by friends on social media.
- Identify as activists 70% of the time and are 50% more likely to purchase a product that supports a cause.
What merchants should do…
- Create social and charitable causes
- Tell a story
- Invest in influencers and make purchase personalized versus promotional
***
Janna Bowman, Partnerships Associate at Honey, an LC affiliate and a millennial herself, also shared with us her firsthand perspective on millennial shopping habits. Here are her top four tips for merchants on how to market to the millennial demographic.
Personalize
Millennials love personalization. Janna stated she is drawn back to sites that a) remember her, b) have suggestions based on her preferences, and c) offer “VIP” status, coupons, or recognition when she is a loyal customer. Sites she says do personalization well: Sephora, Zappos, Revolve Clothing, Urban Outfitters.
Offer Compelling, Consistent Promotions
Millennials like knowing what to expect from brands in terms of promotions and pricing. For example, Nordstrom has two sales a year. She knows this, expects this, gets excited for this. Janna says she is more likely to shop at full price at this particular store normally, because she only expects the sale prices twice a year.
Janna usually discovers new brands on Instagram. She feels it’s easy and is the only social media that she uses every single day. She follows trends and people that she knows, and she likes to discover similar new brands from those sources.
She also searches for specific items on sites such as Houzz, Polyvore and Pinterest. While one can purchase through Houzz, she still goes to the original site. She once purchased palm pillows on Tommy Bahama which is probably never a site she would have considered on her own.
Janna reads lots of magazines and blogs. She pays attention to articles on home design or clothing. She is very likely to look up a new brand if she sees it featured through an article or blog post because she trusts the source. A direct advertisement, on the other hand, doesn’t have context of how she needs that item and how it relates to her home design or closet.
Promote Social Causes
Cultivating a ‘social cause brand’ is a big trend: Toms, Tori Birch—lots of sites are promoting social causes. This trends and resonates with millennials. Janna came across a Facebook video about Bombas Socks, a sock company that donates a pair for every pair purchased. Socks are not something she paid attention to before, but now she will purchase from Bombas instead of Costco. Janna stated that she finds excuses to give them as gifts, tell other people about them, and just generally promote the Bombas brand. It’s a neat story and feels like impactful shopping.
How do you attract the millennial shoppers?
If you are a merchant looking to partner with Honey, contact LinkConnector at [email protected].