Who Are Millennials and Why Are They Important for Your Business?

The 21st century has changed the face of marketing in a number of ways. One of the most important ones was the rise of internet marketing and social media, combined with the prevalence of smartphones. The generation that grew up during the transition - the millennials - is currently situated somewhere between the age of late teens to mid 30’s. And they have a few traits that differentiate them from the previous generations.

Who exactly are millennials?

The group is known for its two main characteristics - being borderline social and largely dependent on technology. It’s almost impossible to imagine not having a smartphone, internet access and a social media account in this age group. Their habits are also expressed outside of online environment, as they largely prefer to perform activities such as shopping or eating out with a group of friends. Over 60% of millennials visit restaurants at least once a week. They often connect those activities with social media, for example by asking their friends about opinions on Facebook or posting photographs of their new clothes or the food they ordered on Instagram or Snapchat. For this reason, they are effectively online 24/7.

How to deliver marketing content to them?

Millennials are quite unlikely to respond to traditional means of marketing. They have been bombarded with both conventional and digital versions of it for quite some time, and as a tech-savvy population they are very distrustful towards corporations and brands as a whole. However, they are much more likely to respond to well-targeted messaging as well as content marketing. They prefer information to be presented quickly and to-the-point, as their tolerance for prolonged speeches is quite low.

One of the most obvious ways to reach them is social media. Facebook is by far the most prominent one, with as many as 88% of online adults aged 18-29 in the US using the portal (PewInternet). It also has the largest number of minutes spent per visit (SmartInsight). Other outlets, such as Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat are quite a bit behind, but still remain very relevant to everyday communication in the demographic.

This group also exhibits the highest mobile penetration. This makes mobile marketing, as well as any sort of service optimization for this kind of devices much more valuable. Millennials browse the internet by utilizing their smartphones and tablets instead of their PCs, meaning that the websites that they visit need to be created with this in mind. Otherwise you risk high bounce rates, that do not exactly go well with the strategy of using captivating content in order to yield best results.

What makes them so special as customers?

There is, however, a reason for why millennials are a great target for promoting your business: they are very likely to further spread information about your business entirely by themselves. Their social media habits create a perfect environment for an extensive word-of-mouth marketing. Think about it - how many times have you seen people asking on social media which company or shop their friends can recommend? If you use it as frequently as most of the group, chances are, it’s even several times per week. What if people referred others directly to you?

What's Social WiFi's role in all of this?

Social WiFi can easily help you out with that. When they connect to your network and log in with their social media account, they’ll be able to interact with your venue, such as by likes, check-ins or follows. They will also be able to give you their feedback and engage in a two-way communication with you, giving you the chance to prevent them from posting any sort of negative opinions by offering them coupons, discounts, or simply improving the aspects they complain about. Happy customer is a good customer, right?

Chances are, millennials are a significant portion of your client base. Make sure that you can easily communicate with them if you want to reach not only your visitors, but also their acquaintances.