For brands looking to connect with Millennials, communicators will be interested to know that 58 percent of Gen Y maintain a separate email account just for brand communication—and 83 percent of them have made a purchase from email in the past three months. This indicates that Millennials want to receive brand emails, but don’t want to clog their primary inboxes, according to new data from Yes Lifecycle Marketing.
For its new study, A Marketer’s Guide to Reaching the Generations, Yes surveyed over a thousand consumers of all ages—and reveals that more than one in three of these consumers have a separate email account for brand messages. Nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of consumers who have a separate email account for promotions check it frequently, whereas only half of consumers who don’t have a separate account check their personal account for brand emails on a frequent basis.
“As the number of channels marketers can use to interact with consumers grow, customer preferences will continue to evolve,” said Michael Fisher, president of Yes Lifecycle Marketing, in a news release. “By analyzing customer data, particularly by generation, marketers can gain a better grasp of their target audiences’ needs and preferences in order to better meet their customers where they are.”
The report also reveals that most consumers check their email for brand promotions at home, either in the morning (32 percent) or evening (31 percent). A solid one in four consumers look for brand emails throughout the day.
Generation Z (or Centennials) are most likely to check email on the go and to pass time. They check for marketing emails while commuting (6 percent) or waiting in line (14 percent). Generation X, on the other hand, is most likely to check their emails at all times of the day.
Additional findings include:
- More than two-thirds of consumers (68 percent) have made a purchase after receiving a brand email in the past three months.
- Only 26 percent of Baby Boomers have a separate email account for brand messages.
- Gen Z are less engaged with email than all other generations—40 percent have not made a purchase from email in the past three months. Almost half of Millennials (47 percent) have made three or more purchases via email recently, twice as many as Centennials.
“Perhaps because their inboxes have become flooded with marketing emails in recent years, consumers across generations are opting for brand-only email accounts—but this isn’t a bad thing for marketers,” said Michael Iaccarino, CEO and chairman of Infogroup, parent company of Yes Lifecycle Marketing, in the release. “Brands need cross-channel communication platforms so they can reach the ever-evolving consumer when they want, where they want, and how they want.”
Download the complete report here.
A Marketer’s Guide to Reaching the Generations is based on a survey of more than 1,000 consumers, centered on generational preferences and behavior, who have received a marketing email in the past year.
