Retail marketing requires new strategies to engage millennials
Millennials are beginning to gain ground as young professionals, which means that they're a group with disposable income that the retail industry is very interested to engage. However, this generation has unique characteristics that may require merchants to adjust their strategies to market to them effectively.
Referring to data from a recent Pew Research poll, CNBC explained that millennials' relatively low level of social trust makes it harder to retailers to gain their loyalty and find success in advertising campaigns.
"You can't base your business model on repeat purchase," Larry Chiagouris, a marketing professor at Pace University, told the source. "You have to compete for the loyalty with each purchase."
What can merchants do? The source noted that millennials desire more opportunities for interaction, so it's important for brands to have a social media presence and explore ways to use retail technology to engage customers. It can also help to reshape how retailers think about traditional strategies, like loyalty programs. For example, Forbes Magazine explained that merchants typically think their loyalty programs aren't effective if shoppers hold cards from multiple stores. However, these initiatives can still be effective in multiple ways, from offering customers interactive reward options to providing retailers with additional consumer data to better personalize their marketing efforts.
