Millennials Have Unexpected Fondness for Paper Coupons

April 1, 2016 by
Millennials Have Unexpected Fondness for Paper Coupons

We’ve looked before at the importance of rewards programs, and a recent report from Quad / Graphics illustrates clearly how important rewards programs are to the upcoming superpower of consumerism: the millennial market.

As it turns out, millennials are often seen ignoring digital rewards programs in favor of paper coupons, and that may mean some needed changes should be in the works to draw back the interest.

The Quad / Graphics report reveals that over half of millennials are actually ignoring mobile coupons and digital rewards programs.

Direct mail and print advertising are having more of an impact based on millennial use, and that means that millennials are plain old looking for something different than what the generally accepted principles suggest should be sought after,

Millennials are generally regarded as media astute and eager for what’s called an omnichannel experience, where a variety of different contact measures are available.

Marketers are having a difficult time, therefore, running measurements and figuring out how to allocate spending, because an even split across all sectors may ultimately yield waste.

Yet all the channels involved, from print to mobile, are each contributing something different, yet something desirable; cutting back on any one could yield loss of sales.

Only two percent of customers in an AdWeek survey were influenced by mobile ads, while four percent were hit by magazine ads.

The biggest share, 19 percent, came from newspapers. Mobile push notification programs actually saw the biggest decline in enrollment rates, and some wonder if maybe the marketers aren’t pushing users away with overly aggressive marketing.

With more apps turning to push notifications to get engagement, it’s not a surprise to think that users might be a bit more discriminating in just what push notifications they accept.

So in the end, taking some focus off the mobile and putting it into other fields could be helpful; it’s safe to say that the era of big-target broadcasting is lost, diffused among the totality of media.

Where before, print was the only real advertising, it expanded to radio, to television, to the Internet, to mobile.

While each of these has lost a little, each is still a part of the picture. It’s a balanced profile that will draw the best attention in an omnichannel market, and that’s a point we all need to remember.

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