Tips for Targeting Millennials With Mobile Email Marketing for the Holidays

Plenty of retailers this holiday season will be looking to tap into the lucrative millennial market with mobile email marketing. Campaigner, an email marketing solution service, projects that the millennial generation will play a pivotal role in mobile purchases this holiday season.

U.S. retail ecommerce holiday sales are expected to reach $61.8 billion this year, up 15 percent over 2012, according to market research company eMarketer. Transactions on mobile devices are expected to reach 16 percent.

Campaigner’s recent survey of over 1,200 US respondents ranging in age from 18 to 34 reveals that 67 percent of millennials use email on their mobile phone. Of those, 10 percent have made transactions directly from a mobile marketing email, which is more than in any other age group.

Nevertheless, retailers face some challenges if they want to turn millennials into loyal consumers. “Millennials are super connected, savvy shoppers. You have to expect that your message will be sitting next to one (or more) of your direct competitors,” says Seamas Egan, corporate sales manager for Campaigner.

In fact, less than half of millennials (48 percent) in Campaigner’s survey reported that marketing emails make up more than half of their total emails, and 50 percent of them are not sure about the impact of marketing emails. In addition, one out of four millennials are aloof to marketing emails and express irritation when they are targeted with irrelevant content.

Campaigner predicts that marketers will have three major challenges to tackle this holiday season:

• Persuading millennials to open emails,
• engagement with emails,
• and social sharing of the deals via social media.

“It’s always a good rule of thumb to be aware of what your competition is doing and make sure your offer stands out,” Egan tells ClickZ. “The easiest way to stand out is high quality [and] interesting content.”

Given that more than two-thirds of millennials are reluctant to share email deals through social channels, Egan gives three tips on driving business engagement to help brands achieve a better holiday season.

“An easy win from first timers is shopping cart abandonment emails. They are simple to setup and have an excellent ROI,” Egan says. “Also, if you have yet to invest in developing responsive design emails for your marketing campaigns, you should [do it] ASAP.”

Meanwhile, Egan suggests that markers should deliver easily digestible content on mobile devices. “If not, you should expect your interaction rate to drop and your sales from your marketing efforts to follow,” Egan tells ClickZ. “Keeping pace with these ‘mobile millennials’ should be a priority, as their influence and shopping spend only increases year-over-year.”

See the infographic illustrating Campaigner’s key findings on reaching millennials via mobile on their website.