Email marketing allows businesses to understand more about their target audience and create relationships with them, as well as raise brand authority, customer loyalty, and income.In short, email marketing is a fantastic medium that has been shown time and time again to deliver excellent results.However, how does email fare with younger generations in particular? Do millennials still go through their inboxes on a daily basis? What about Gen Z, the generation that comes after the millennials? Can email be used to engage millennials?
A fast online search indicates that today’s youth utilise email just as much as earlier generations—if not more. Take a look at these figures:
- 44% of millennials began using email before the age of 15 years old.
- Millennials prefer to contact businesses via email in 73% of cases.
- One out of every three millennials opens their email first thing in the morning.
Email marketing is also effective with Generation Z:
- Sixty-eight percent of Gen Zers check their email many times per day.
- More than a third of Gen Zers want to receive emails from businesses many times per week, and 27.5 percent want to receive emails from brands every day.
- Because the average Gen Zer receives only 20 emails per day, there will be less competition when marketing to this generation via email.
Obviously, the issue isn’t “Do younger generations care about and use email?” but rather “Do younger generations care about and use email?” “How should my brand use email to interact with millennials and Gen Zers?” is the query.
That’s what we’ll discuss in the following section!
7 methods to use email marketing to engage Gen Z and Millennials
Simple as that, email marketing works. However, when marketing to Gen Xers, the methods that worked aren’t always the same when trying to engage with millennials and Gen Zers. Here are seven methods to use email marketing to engage younger generations:
1. Make your emails mobile-friendly.
On their phones, 59 percent of millennials and 67 percent of Gen Zers check email. You’re alienating a large percentage of your audience if your messages aren’t optimised for mobile devices, and it’s unlikely you’ll ever be successful with email marketing.
2. Become a master of the must-click subject line
Regardless of who you’re selling to, your email subject lines are crucial. Your subject line is much more important when it comes to younger populations. Because millennials and Gen Zers are constantly bombarded with content, this is the case.
Millennials receive up to 50 emails per day, according to 66.2 percent of them. Furthermore, the average Gen Zer spends nearly three hours every day on social media and 23 hours per week watching videos.
Advertisements, blog postings, YouTube videos, and digital communications all compete for the attention of young people. Your email will be discarded in a hurry if the subject line doesn’t grab them by the metaphorical lapels and stimulate their interest.
You’ll need to experiment with different topic lines to determine what works best. However, here are a few pointers:
- Get to the point: Readers are confused by vague and/or too clever subject lines. Make sure yours is well-written and under 65 characters long.
- Use action verbs: Words like “buy,” “shop,” and “see” assist users to understand what you want them to do, making it more likely that they will.
- Personalize your subject lines: Marketing initiatives that are tailored to the individual are always more effective. Use your subscribers’ names in your subject lines or send them hyper-personalized messages to increase open and click-through rates.
- Tap into urgency: Use urgency to get your readers to open your email right now rather than later. Is it a one-day sale? Is there a limited supply? If at all feasible, include a sense of urgency.
- Emojis aren’t to be feared: Some individuals believe emojis are unprofessional. Millennials and Gen Zers, on the other hand, utilise them all. Include one in your next subject line to help your communication stand out in your subscribers’ inboxes.
3. Share company principles and beliefs on a regular basis.
Younger generations are seeking more than just fantastic prices on high-end items. They also want to support brands that reflect their own personal ideals and worldviews.
So, what is your company’s mission statement? What causes does it advocate for? Do you give a portion of your profits to a good cause? Which ones, if any, are you talking about? Are you devoted to environmentally friendly manufacturing and safe working conditions for your employees?
Share your brand’s values with your email subscribers once you’ve identified them.
Email is a great way to promote your brand’s mission and interact with millennials and Gen Zers on a more personal level. It will also result in increased earnings for your company: Millennials are more likely to buy from ethical businesses, according to 92 percent of them.
4. Develop a compelling customer loyalty programme.
Customer loyalty programmes are fantastic, and each and every company should have one. According to surveys, 52 percent of consumers will choose brands with whom they can earn awards or points.
A quality loyalty programme, according to 76 percent of millennials and 43 percent of Gen Zers, will boost their frequency of buying from a business. To put it another way, your brand’s loyalty programme could be a great source of additional cash!
Email marketing can help you with your loyalty programme. How? Simply send exclusive offers, coupons, early access to sales, and other incentives to your subscribers to make them feel special and increase their spending. We’re confident that your younger consumers will appreciate it!
5. Make segmentation of your target audience a primary concern.
Consumers today want individualised connections with the brands they purchase. So don’t even consider mass-mailing another generic email to all of your subscribers.
Instead, divide your email list into like-minded groups so you can send each member, specific offers and material you know they’ll like. Don’t worry, it’s not quite as complicated as it may appear…
- Collect information: Before you can segment your audience, you must first learn about them. What do they like and who are they? What do they want to achieve? Have they previously interacted with your brand? Enter all of this information into a CRM such as RisePath CRM.
- Choose your segmentation strategy: You can segment your subscribers in a variety of ways. For example, you may categorise individuals based on age and gender, their physical location, their behaviours inside your marketing funnel, or a combination of these factors. Select the best segmentation strategy for your objectives.
- Send tailored email campaigns: After segmenting your email list, you may send highly targeted communications to your subscribers. You may, for example, send males on your list offers for men’s products and ladies on your list offers for women’s products.
6. Always mention something worthwhile.
Each email you send should have a clear goal in mind. This is basic email marketing advice, but it’s especially important when trying to reach millennials and Gen Zers.
As previously said, millennials and Gen Zers consume content on a near-daily basis. As a result, people instinctively tune out anything that does not immediately pique their interest or is unrelated to their current position.
To effectively use email marketing to reach younger generations, you must only send them relevant communications with a lot of value.
“Value” can now take many different forms…
A sale on products and/or services that are relevant is beneficial. It is beneficial to have information about relevant topics. Stories that are interesting and/or entertaining are useful.
Overly promotional messages that are clearly designed to earn revenue for the firm that issued them are not valuable. Millennials and Gen Zers are turned off by these kinds of emails because they appear spammy and insult their intelligence.
7. Experiment with various email marketing tactics.
Finally, don’t be hesitant to try out different types of email content and display styles. If you usually send plain-text emails, for example, try including gorgeous artwork in your next campaign by choosing one of your ESP’s eye-catching themes.
Alternatively, you might really raise your game and test interactive material. Emails that entice subscribers to play a game or navigate through an interactive menu are what we’re talking about.
Another thought: try experimenting with multimedia…
Use GIFs and infographics instead of static photos in your emails. Better yet, if you believe your audience would enjoy it, embed the entire video.
Visuals are extremely popular among the Millennial and Generation Z generations. It’s one of the key reasons why social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube have grown in popularity. Or why, on occasion, over 82 percent of millennials admit to binge-watching Netflix shows for more than 5 hours.
To boost your email efforts, see whether you can take advantage of the visual content frenzy.
Make friends with the younger generations.
Here’s the deal: despite the occasional blog post claiming that email is dead, email marketing remains a terrific tool to reach millennials and Gen Zers. You may need to adjust your plan slightly to engage younger generations in meaningful ways.
Fortunately, the seven techniques outlined above can help you attract millennials and Gen Zers to your email marketing efforts, convince them to buy from you, and earn their loyalty.
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