Over the past several years, the youngest generation has come of age and with this development, more and more companies have had to learn how to cater to their consumer tendencies. Unfortunately, many traditional business models have failed to grasp the millennials in the same way as previous generations, leaving many companies wondering how they can expand their reach. When you combine this with the fact that the global economy has been lackluster for the past several years, it comes as no surprise that the youngest generation of adults is more skeptical and disengaged with traditional marketing than ever before. Below, we will discuss the main reasons why your marketing strategies are not working on millennials.

They Don’t Value Mail

Many consumers have been influenced to consider certain products and services through the concept of direct mail, but millennials are not as persuasive. Many have grown up in worlds where blatant advertising – in this case, junk mail – is so prevalent that it becomes very easy to tune out these types of marketing efforts. If you have been using direct mail to reach out to younger audiences, then you may wish to consider pinging your website to them via email marketing lists. While this still is not a guaranteed strategy for success, it has been proven that younger individuals pay closer attention to their emails than they do traditional mail.

They Search Various Sources

Have you created a great PPC campaign on Google or another major search engine? Do your metrics show a failure to reach as many millennials as you originally expected? There is ample reasoning behind this. Millennials have been documented to search for various forms of information through a variety of sources – in fact, social media has been shown to be just as much a part of traditional search methods for millennials as traditional search. With key players like Facebook now moving to incorporate more search engine-related data into their social search systems, marketers will have to readjust their strategies and engage in relevant advertising across multiple venues.

They Don’t Watch TV

Okay, the title may be misleading: millennials do watch television, but they do it in a much different way than most other people. Born in the age of the internet and ever-advancing technology, most young adults now either pay for streaming services or watch television and other forms of content through the internet, where advertising is much more customized. Those who try to reach younger demographics via traditional television and print will find that their audience does not match their initial expectations. Online advertising is the way to go, and a much better way to be pinging your website to relevant audiences.

They Don’t Like Cold Calling

Nobody really appreciates this element of marketing, but millennials are far more adept at avoiding the situation. While older demographics may still have landlines without caller ID, almost every millennial can identify who is calling before they answer the phone. In many cases, a millennial may even be able to search the phone number in question while it is ringing to see who exactly is calling. There is a much strong tendency to not answer the phone if the number is unrecognized – which makes cold calling particularly ineffective. When you combine this with such a large percentage of millennials having unlisted cell phones, this strategy is simply dead in the water.