The Millennials are the generation that has been receiving the most marketing attention lately.
There are good reasons for this.
The Millennials represent the largest population group internationally that is young, full of energy and sees the world differently than the previous generations.
The purpose of this guidebook is to share insights into how differently they perceive such major aspects of their lives as careers and work, entrepreneurship and education.
To get the attention of clients, partners or potential employees among the Millennials, it is necessary to understand their terms of present life and prospects for the future.
The guidebook will also prove the point that this generation has lots of unconventional insights to offer to the rest of the world.
So,
Who are the Millennials?
Millennials, also known as “Generation Y”, or “the Net Generation”, are those born between 1980 and 2000. They belong to the demographic cohort that directly follows Generation X.
The term “Millennials” considers those who reached adulthood around the turn of the 21st century. Millennials grew up during an electronics-filled and increasingly online and socially-networked times. And they are referred to as digital natives because of that.
As the most ethnically diverse generation to date, Millennials are generally tolerant of differences. Because they live by the motto “follow your dreams” and they are being told they were special, they are more confident than previous generations. While largely a positive trait, the Millennials’ confidence tends to turn into narcissism.
Millennials hold a different view on money
The sharing economy is the new economic reality
Millennials are unwilling to buy items such as cars, music and luxury goods as their first need.
According to the Goldman Sachs Survey, 70% of them said that the most important for them is to buy a house. Instead, they’re becoming interested in a new set of services that provide access to products without the disadvantages of ownership, giving faith to the blossoming sharing economy services.
What is more, Millennials tend to postpone significant milestones like marriage and children. Yet, it doesn’t mean they want to stay single forever. 70% of them want to get married and 74% want to have children when they will be settled with their careers.
Health and wellness are among top priorities
According to the Aetna studies, “healthy” for Millennials means not only “not feel sick” how it was for previous generations. But it stands for a daily commitment to eat right and exercise. The percentage of those smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol also got smaller within the years.
For Millennials, wellness is a daily, active pursuit. They’re focused on daily exercising and eating smart. They’re using apps to track training and nutrition data, and consult online resources to find the healthiest foods.
This is the area where they’re willing to spend money on specific brands when best products are offered.
Brands have to be affordable and tell a good story
Millennials are conscious about the available product information, reviews, and price comparisons.
According to the AIMIA Loyalty Survey, 57% of Millennials compare prices in store. Therefore, they are turning to brands that can offer maximum convenience at the lowest cost.
Not only the quality and price are important in the transaction of a particular brand but the cause it brings. Another research suggests that almost 50% of Millennials would be more willing to buy a service or a product if a company supports an important matter. Moreover, 37% say they are willing to purchase a product or service to support a cause they believe in, even if it means paying a bit more.
37% millennials are willing to purchase a product or service to support a cause they believe in, even if it means paying a bit more
As the Internet usage among Millennials is increasing, more Millennials use social media tools, too.
Not surprisingly, Millennials are turning to their online networks when making purchasing decisions. Yet what is important to consider in marketing, 34% of Millennials would prefer a brand solely because it is active on social media.
As the virtual world is an everyday reality for Millennials, brands have an opportunity to turn the clients’ communications from one-sided to both-sided.
This makes sense as not less than 40% of Generation Y wants to participate in co-creation of products and brands. As a company selling products to Millennials, you must be open to hearing your clients’ opinions. Because 70% of them feel a responsibility to share their feedback with companies after a good or bad experience.
Millennials want to be engaged
According to the Nielsen consulting group, an average Millennial in November 2015 spent over 27 hours using PC, 48,5 hours using Smartphone and 12,5 hours using a tablet. It is a great opportunity for brands and marketers to interact with them during their work or leisure time.
Also, a digital outreach is more likely to prove successful as 73% of Millennials use PC and 63% of them use a tablet.
A high percentage of those using Internet-connected devices does not cast doom to more traditional media channels: Millennials spend over 4 hours a day with their TVs on.
Social networks are the #1 choice for communication
75% of Millennials are on social media and 81% use them to interact with brands. It is clear that brands and companies should invest their efforts in content marketing to offer their social media audiences.
Brands and companies should invest their efforts in content marketing to engage their social media audiences.
The best bet is to interact with your clients on Facebook and to share insightful content there. Because not less than 78% of Generation Y uses it to interact with customer service. Then, Twitter with 43% of usage, Instagram with 25%, Yelp with 18% and LinkedIn with 13%.
Five out of six Millennials want to connect with companies on social media, but they want something in return, such as discounts, free perks, and better customer service. Moreover, they demand constant communication. Not less than 22% of Generation X expect a 10-minute response time on social media.
Nevertheless, Millennials are more demanding also as for the content on brands’ profiles. According to Yahoo Content Marketing Ingestion Study, the information should be brief (54%), entertaining (53%), funny (51%), fresh (48%), unique (47%), informative (46%) and relevant to who they are (46%).
Since Millennials want to be engaged and they want to hear a good story, plain traditional advertising and PPC campaigns don’t work. The Millennials’ era is calling for smart content marketing, a smarter and a balanced way to share valuable content while building your reputation and credibility as a brand online.
Millennials are ambitious and hard-working
Denying common opinion on a lack of ambition in terms of Millennials, 53% of employed Millennials say that they aim to get to the top of their career, which is a much higher rate than what you’ll find among previous generations. Moreover, 28% percent of employed Millennials define themselves as workaholics.
75% of Millennials are on social media and 81% use them to interact with brands.
Millennials have high standards of a job they are undertaking.
According to Deloitte Millennial Survey, to make them satisfied with a job, the employer should provide a work-life balance (16,8%), opportunities to progress (13,4%), flexibility (11%), sense of purpose in their work (9,3%) and professional development training programs (8,3%).
However, Millennials are focused more on their own careers than being loyal to their employer.
66% of Millennials expect to leave their organization by the end of 2020 while 46% of them express a desire to start their own business someday.
Millennials defy conventional education
Mobile learning as the new sexy…
Mobile learning is an approach of using portable or hand-held electronic devices as a media for learning.
This type of education trend is the most pronounced among others. Here is a bit of data that proves it: 99% of mobile learners believe the mobile format enhanced their learning. Moreover, 80% of all employees use their smartphones at work.
What is more striking is that the mobile learning market is expected to grow up to $37.60 billion in 2016 and there is no sign this trend is going to fade out anytime soon.
With a boost in mobile devices and an increase of the Internet usage, the learning professionals should focus on this learning.
…combined with audio-visual elements…
Video-based learning is a strategy of providing visual components to improve the learning experience.
This trend in education is expected to grow stronger. Now, not less than 98% of organizations embed video elements as a part of their digital learning strategy, while 75% of business executives watch work-related videos on a weekly basis.
Video-based learning becomes a natural part of Millennials everyday life. Nearly all employees under 25 expect to find a virtual learning platform within their employer’s work environment.
The data reveal that the learner is likely to remember only 10% of textual content, 20% of visual content, 30% of audio content, but 50% of the audio-visual content.
…and the gamification approach…
Gamification is a learning-based strategy that changes traditional education process into engageable user content by applying game-based dynamics to it.
The familiar example of gamification is a question answering contest. Gamification naturally synergizes with other types of educational technology trends, e.g. mobile-based, remote and cloud-based learning.
Game-based learning is similar to gamification, but it is different regarding approach. In game-based learning, the student really explores the material by playing a game, while working towards aims and objectives. In gamification, only certain parts of the educational material are made to be game-like, rather than into a game itself. The student gets feedback using several game-based rewards strategies.
The market for this type of learning is predicted to grow to nearly $10 billion by 2020. It is not a surprise, while nearly 80% of learners claim they would be more productive if their work was more game-like. What is more, 61% of surveyed senior executives take daily game breaks at work. Over half say they do so to “feel more productive”.
… creates an informal environment to learn
Informal learning is a type of education, where the learner has no set objective in terms of learning outcomes.
Often, it is referred to as learning by experience or just as an experience.
This type of learning is not that easy to measure, but nearly 80% of all corporate learning practices take place via on-the-job interactions with peers, experts, and managers.
Of course, the innovation and experimentation do not stop there. A surge of users in augmented reality (a combination of real environment and computer-generated environment with additional information) indicates that the AR market is going to continue its growth from 60 million users to 200 million users by 2018.
More publishers produce digital editions of their popular titles as the EBook market is growing quicker (it expanded by 22% in 2015). This type of books has many advantages, including the ability to select a font, have the content read by a narrator and options allowing a learner to take notes within the e-book itself. This educational trend is predicted to accelerate within next years. For 2015, according to data, 22,5% of consumer book sales in the U.S. were e-books.
Finally, these innovative solutions make conventional education institutions offer personalized education experiences to their students. This approach already shows an impressive rate of 90% when it comes down to retention and comprehension. Adjusted learning trends support students’ enrolling in online courses, listening to the lectures while everyday activities or during breaks, read the course materials and complete the assignments on hand-held devices. The potential in that type of education is unlimited.
By 2025, 75% of the global workforce will be the Y Generation. Given these trends, the Millennials will influence the conventional ways of working, doing business and studying.
What do you think? How do you prepare for these trends? How do you hire or educate your new employees or students? Let us know in the comment section below.
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