Top 9 Millennial Marketing Tips for Retail

Top 9 Tips for Independent Retail 

As part of our series of #BigIdeas2016, one of the most intriguing topics is how Millennials, via their shopping habits and mobile device usage are transforming customer experiences in Retail. 

This is equally important for small store owners, medium independent stores and big brand Retail to keep track of. Catering to Millennials is a challenge, but considering how independent stores often have niche products for lifestyle interests, hipster & progressive Millennials, this also urgent, as we enter 2016. 

Why Are Millennials Significant

Millennials are significant because: 

1) Larger cohort - 92 million if (1980-2000)

2) First digital natives

3) Omni Social and connected

4) They have less money to spend

5) They are encumbered with debt

6) Their values are different and have different preferences 

Top 9 Tips for Millennials - How to Reach Them for Independent Retailers?

1. Optimize your store's brand on Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, YouTube & Twitter with visual and video content that's ideal for mobile viewing. 

For SMB retail who don't have extra $ to spend, this has immediate benefits. Develop branded hashtags that your Millennial consumers can relate to, share and generate user-generated-content (UGC) that improve your engagement with them. Hack your location with Instagram hashtags that drive traffic to your store. 

2. Create Campaigns that relate to Social good 

Millennials respond to corporate social responsibility (CSR) promotions, that contribute to community, protecting minorities, philanthropy, charity and local events. For local stores this is even more important. Tie this in to your loyalty rewards program via discounts on next purchase or accelerated loyalty points rewards, if Millennials contribute videos or images on the theme of your campaign. 

3. Omni User Generated Content

This means vear away from the sales-advertising model, and more towards content that mirror them, their language, their channels, their messages. For indie stores this means more hipster and authentic vibe. 

Omni means cross-media and cross-channel, from local offline catalogue to some video presence online, Millennials appreciate uniqueness, culture and innovative media.

Do promotions targeted to this demographic in particular, whether via Email or SMS marketing, integrated with automated loyalty marketing that integrates customer analytics and proof of ROI in every campaign in $. 

4. Have Good Branding

Millennials enjoy good story-telling, behind the scenes content snacks, knowing about the people that work at your store. Knowing about the perks of being a customer with you guys.

Cultivate a positive and authentic tone that's more H2H (human centric) rather than sales centric. Millennials are the most educated, diverse and global generation, but also the poorest.  So avoid being fake, forced and endorsing influencers who are credible to them, not you. 

Always give them experiences in relation to your brand that are fun, casual and foster brand identification. 

5. Have a Soul for Sustainability 

Millennials care about the environment, improving the world and want a brand to stand for something. For indie retailers, if your product contributes to health, sustainability, innovation, so much the better. Indie brands that can demonstrate they care about local events, helming those in need, are good environmental stewards, are socially responsible, can respect their personal data, are transparent but offer more engaging white label loyalty campaigns. All these things will score points with Millennials. 

A store that has a lot of soul and character, will have a flawless online reputation management (ORM), simply because they are that genuine, sincere and radiate positive awareness. 

6. Hack Millennial Ecology Social Structures 

For young people, it's peer word of mouth that is the ticket. So its very important for indie stores to put into place friend-referral programs which substantial benefits. This reduces the cost of acquisition for a customer and improves engagement, minimizes churn and ties into your loyalty program. 

The idea here is a small store is an intimate experience, and if it's authentic, Millennials will want to share it with their close associates and wide network of fellow students, young professionals and so forth. If an indie brand can cultivate this kind of one-on-one or small-community connection with the customer, they are in effect, producing a customer experience that has social authority. 

So it's important not just to do promotions, but events, giving thanks and recognition to VIP customers, have testimonials from influencers, having customary advisor panels, do online surveys and of course do social media and PR with a voice that is accessible, intimate and inspiring. 

7. Market your Vulnerability 

Millennials grew up with social media, so they value transparency. One hack for indie retail is to really learn how to be uncomfortably open and honest with their customers. Having a weekly Newsletter via Email is one idea. 

Posting video content that celebrates seasonal holidays is another. Millennials don't fall for PR stunts, they fall in love with brands the are easy to identify with, have a genuine quality about them and owners and branding that cares about them. 

Millennials want to see that there are real and sensitive people behind your brand. They are not looking for a pitch, they are looking for a genuine interaction. 

Millennials find it so tough in the economy, that increasingly they are opting to live with their Parents longer than ever before. 

8. Understand your Audience 

With youth unemployment at an all-time high and competing against peers who are the most educated in history, Millennials have to struggle sometimes just to find a part time job that won't even lead them to a regular job often. With massive student debts, decreasing quality of life and housing that isn't affordable, many Millennials are forced to migrate to other countries, just to survive and have the possibility of having a family one day. 

This requires the indie store to recognize and have compassion for their young customers. Offering them a niche product that encourages them in their leisure, social and niche lifestyle is truly giving back to a generation whose 20s and 30s may not have gone so smoothly. 

9. Don't Ignore Millennials 

The danger for indie retail is that they don't have the time to market to this segment with much thought. That is why marketing automation that hacks loyalty can be such a huge help. 

In the next 10 years, Millennials will become those VIP customers of SMB retail stores. So neglecting Millennials, is really neglecting the future. How Millennials are hacking innovation and life hacking their relationship to corporate culture, career and their future is the key for Retailers. Being on a cloud POS, integrating with IoT sensors, doing SMS and not just Email marketing, are all very basic things a store owner can do to anticipate targeting for Millennials. 

The fact is, "Millennials" are a trending segment because they represent different behaviours, values and a different social reality of the zeitgeist. They might not like to be boxed in a category, but for older Retailers, this allows us to target them better and thereby provide them better and more personalized customer experiences. 

Not appealing to them, is to be left behind by others who are adapting better to the future. From a sociological perspective, some Millennials are not hipster then by choice, but by the harsh necessity of the new reality of capitalism. The counter cultures and lifestyle interest niches that many independent stores cater to, are therefore, to lifestyle choices Millennials have made, to live more creative authentic lives and to adapt to a less prosperous environment.