Why Direct Marketing Appeals to Millennials

The Millennial generation is broadly defined as those that were conscious of the world, but not yet adult at the turn of the Millennium. Roughly speaking, those born between the early 80s and the late 90s. Depending on precisely where you draw the boundaries, Millennials make up between 20% and 25% of the UK population. They don’t have as much disposable income as previous generations did at the same age, but they make up closer to 50% of the working age population and many of them are starting to experience parenthood themselves for the first time. There’s a lot of money to be made by companies that can successfully market to Millennials and, as we shall see, direct postal marketing has a particular appeal. 

The Joy of the Real

Millennials are the first ‘digital generation’. It has become a cliché to point out that many of them will not remember life before the internet. However, the resurgence of interest in non-digital formats (vinyl records, printed books, handwritten letters) has been led by this younger demographic. And this is something to bear in mind when marketing to them.

Direct Marketing

The receipt of a personally-addressed piece of mail – sent to you because you have expressed an interest in something – is a very different experience to having the twentieth promotional email of the day show up in your inbox (if it makes it past your spam filter). Last year, research conducted by Adobe revealed that Millennials open less than a third of the marketing emails that they receive. By way of contrast, a study conducted by the US Postal Service showed that 84% of American young adults take the time to read their low-tech regular mail. 87% said they liked receiving mail, 90% thought that direct marketing via mail was reliable and 57% had made a purchase based on offers received via direct mail.

Expect Feedback

This is a generation who are not afraid of sharing what they think. If your product or service is thoughtfully marketed to the correct people within the demographic, expect a positive response. If you make hasty overgeneralisations, expect a noisy negative response. Don’t fall into the Hillary Clinton trap. The team behind her election campaign asked Millennials to share their thoughts on student loan debt “…in 3 emojis or less.” As you’d expect, this literate generation objected to being talked down to and the response was overwhelmingly negative.

At Colour Print, we can help you with the design, print and distribution of a thought-provoking marketing campaign. Using our digital printing machines, we can help you to personalise individual direct marketing materials, so that your target market feels less like they are on the receiving end of a broad mailshot and more like they are receiving a personal letter of recommendation. 

For more information on any of our services, please contact our office on 01603 488001. Alternatively, email any questions to sales@col-print.co.uk.

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