5 Email Marketing Tactics That Are “on Fleek”

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Key takeaways

• Prioritize authenticity: Millennials seek genuine, transparent inbox communication, not nonstop sales pitches.
• Personalize at the individual level using contact-list insight, device properties and other identifiers to avoid generic emails.
• Automate predictable customer paths so you can scale personalised experiences and free time for creative outreach.
• Relearn your Millennial data: discard assumptions, run recurring A/B tests and use social media to update your understanding.
• Commit to constant change: adapt language, trends and creative frequently to stay relevant to Millennial culture.
• Avoid repurposed, generic messages. These are unlikely to engage a Millennial audience with growing buying power.

Introduction

To the Millennial generation, being “on fleek” is all about offering up something that is “on point” or to do something in the right way. In other words, if the youthful portion of your audience offers up the “on fleek” commendation, it’s safe to say that your brand is winning in the inbox.

Considering that Forbes magazine’s Dan Schawbel reports that North American Millennials currently lay claim to over $200 billion in purchasing power – a figure that is only trending upward – it’s far from a bad idea to start thinking of your email marketing efforts via this kind of lingo. With this in mind, here are five tactics that can help your brand offer up inbox content that’s “on fleek” and appealing to this increasingly influential generation.

Start with an Authentic Approach

As Schawbel explains, there’s no point in going any farther with this discussion if your brand isn’t willing to be authentic with its marketing endeavors – especially in the inbox. Millennials crave a genuine connection with organizations like your own, so it’s imperative that you strive for honestly and transparency in your inbox offerings.

If everything you fire off to the inbox is a sales pitch that does little to show you actually care about this segment of your audience, don’t’ be surprised when the response is less than stellar. However, if you really put the time and effort into embracing the culture and concerns of this group – as well as molding content around these considerations – then forging a lasting bond should come as second nature.

Individual Interaction Goes a Long Way

Going a step farther, Cory Munchbach of Target Marketing magazine points out in her look at what it means to be “on fleek” via your brand’s marketing operations that individuality is a big deal to this generation, so you’ll be hard pressed to go wrong with a healthy dose of personalization. The truth of the matter is that repurposing old messages or offering up generic emails won’t fly with the Millennials.

Instead, your brand needs to leverage contact list insight, device properties, and other key individual identifiers to capture the attention of these viewers. The more customized you can make your content around their individual experiences, the more likely you are to truly win over this sometimes standoffish audience.

Automation Helps a Lot on This Front

Of course, building a unique inbox experience for every single Millennial member of your contact list simply isn’t realistic if you’re working on this process all by yourself. Fortunately, David Baker of Media Post’s Email Insider blog points out that automation helps a ton on this front.

Essentially, if your brand is able to predict a customer path or inbox experience reliably based on consumer data, go ahead and automate the process if possible. The more mundane pieces of the puzzle that you can put in the hands of software or your email marketing platform, the more time you have to find new and inventive ways to reach out via the inbox to this group.

Relearn Your Data

Speaking of your consumer data, Baker goes on to suggest that it’s a good idea to throw out everything you think you know about Millennials and start from scratch. Just like trying to decipher the meaning of “on fleek” when you read the headline for this article, truly learning about this segment of your audience requires a commitment to understanding their culture.

The big key here is to test and retest your content constantly. By subjecting these offerings to recurring A/B testing, as well as building a strong presence on social media, your brand can develop a more complete picture of the Millennial experience that actually provides insight into what evokes a response from these young men and women.

Commit to Constant Change

Finally, if you really want to offer up an experience that’s “on fleek,” it’s time to commit to embracing constant change as you navigate the always shifting landscape of Millennial culture. With every new day bringing on a new trend, catchy phrase, or other hot topic to the forefront of the discussion, the reality of the situation is that the only thing that stays the same with Millennials is change.

However, if you’re able to embrace this ever-evolving culture – and put to good use the rest of what you’ve learned here – the sky’s the limit in terms of your brand’s ability to resonate with a demographic that continues to grow in influence. All that’s left to do now is ask yourself if you’re ready to send out a marketed message that’s truly “on fleek.”

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