Millennials favour traditional channels over social for retailer promotions, says study

Despite owning the socially-savvy generation tag, when it comes to retailer promotions, Millennials look to emails or websites for deals – according to a new study.

A survey of 2,000 consumers from RapidCampaign found that for 16 to 24-year-olds email is the top channel of choice for finding out about promotions, followed by a retailer’s website.

The research, highlighted in the ‘Brands We Love versus Brands We Buy’ report quashes the ‘Death of Email’ cries, at least in regards to promotions.

An overwhelming majority (76%) of consumers prefer to hear about retailer promotions in their email inbox, followed by seeing them on a retailer’s website, selected by 23% of respondents.

Perhaps surprisingly, the figure for brand-owned sites was higher for younger generations, with 34% of 18 to 24 year olds claiming this was their preferred channel for promotion spotting – a percentage that declines steadily towards older age groups in favour of email.

Facebook was the third top retailer promotion channel, cited by 15%, but it peaked in preference with a slightly older age group of 25 to 34 year olds, with 27% stating the social network was how they wanted to learn about promotions.

The research mirrors popular suggestions that younger generations are increasingly less reliant on Facebook as a communication and commerce channel.

Marko Luhtala, CEO of RapidCampaign, said, “We are seeing a trend among marketers in finding promotions as not only an effective engagement tool at the top of the sales funnel, bringing in customers that would not buy from you normally, but also as a conversion tool closer to the point of sale.”