Reaching the Millennial Consumer

Millennials — the group of young, up-and-coming consumers in their post-college 20s to early-30s — now represent the next rising generation, rapidly increasing in consumer power and influence.

Despite becoming a prime focus of retailers, millennials remain among the least understood consumer sectors. To gain more in-depth insight into millennials, Mom Central Consulting embarked on a groundbreaking study of 1,100 American millennial women. For this research, we surveyed women without children in order to glean insights from the data about millennials as singletons. Today, with more and more women putting off marriage and kids, there's a growing group of non-moms from their mid-20s to early-30s who find themselves with relatively large disposable incomes.

There exists a huge amount of misinformation in the market about this generation. The millennial shopper, as she navigates the world of digital and offline information, demands new sources and a new set of rules. Though her customer journey may seem multifaceted and circuitous, for these women an overload of recommendations and facts is just how they like it.

Millennials often take the "long road," involving inspiration, browsing, education, fact finding, and opinion gathering — all overlapping with one another. They embark on meandering paths of purchase that combine personal aspirations with crowdsourcing and product comparisons. They embrace a strong sense of self and believe they make their best decisions using any available information. As retailers, you see them as consumers deeply influenced by the world around them.

As retailers look to sell to the influential millennial market, what's the best way to reach this generation? Here are three key takeaways:

Millennial purchase path stands in stark contrast to a traditional consumer approach. Our research into previous generations (gen X and tail-end boomers) has shown these consumers follow a highly linear journey — from traditional to word-of-mouth, from awareness to purchase.

With millennials it's not the same. There are multiple points of differentiation where the purchase path doubles back into itself, creating layers of choice and discussion. Here, multiple sources of information — peers, online and offline, traditional media, social media, bloggers, third-party reviews — come into play.

The consumer journey for millennials proves contradictory only from the perspective of older generations. What seems contradictory for some is second nature for millennials.

Digital natives, digital consumers. Millennials’ digital convergence continues even at the point of purchase. They text while in-store, sharing pictures and thoughts, and turn to digital devices when finalizing a spend. Because they live in a world where they're always tuned in, millennials don't see any limits in where or how they shop. Coming of age during the mobile boom feeds into this lifestyle even more, as they no longer need to go in-store — or even sit in front of a computer to make a purchase.

This behavior only elevates the importance of peer recommendations. Should a millennial get a recommendation on the go (e.g., at dinner, on the subway home) she can immediately hop onto her phone to make a purchase.

Couponing: great if found online, but not determinative to purchase. Millennials consider coupons great if they can find one online, but don't depend on them for purchase. Consider the following findings from our survey:

• 60 percent follow brands on social media to learn about new deals and coupons.
• However, 58 percent use online coupons most or some of the time, and only 13 percent use coupons for online purchases all the time.
• Millennials use coupons offline even less than online. They're less likely to use coupons in-store.

Stacy DeBroff is the founder and CEO of Mom Central Consulting, a company that specializes in marketing to mothers for more than 300 brands. Stacy can be reached at stacy@momcentral.com.