Millennials are one of the most important demographics that businesses with an e-commerce presence should be targeting. After all, millennials are now at an age where they possess high purchasing power and the demographic continues to drive a lot of the big trends in recent memory. The fact that they are also the first generation to grow up with the Internet also makes e-commerce a natural thing for many millennials.
When taking into account all of these factors, it should come as no surprise that many SMEs with online stores try their best to cater to millennials. This is an important business move as catering to millennials now can also help secure a loyal customer base for the future. With that in mind, here are five tips to attract millennial customers to your e-commerce website.
Increase Social Media Presence
The “New Normal” includes a significant increase in social media engagement, which gives businesses an advantage if they handle their accounts properly. The majority of social media users are millennials, and to attract them to your e-commerce website, you must first increase your brand’s social media presence.
It is no longer enough to solely create an account and do customer service through those social media platforms alone. Engaging with a customer does not only mean contacting them via messages, but it also means engaging with your target market through creative content. Establishing a relationship with your customers through posts will help increase your brand’s social media presence and attract millennials and other generations who use social media on their day-to-day basis.
Make Your Website Mobile-friendly
Millennials are more likely to use smartphones rather than computers, so it is essential that you make your e-commerce website mobile-friendly. This generation tends to avoid brands that do not have a mobile app or mobile-friendly website as it is inconvenient to them. To do this, choose an e-commerce platform that provides a mobile version layout for your website or create one of your own. Ensure that the way your website looks on a smartphone is different from how it looks on a desktop, meaning people who will visit do not need to zoom in and out of the page.
Optimize Your Website
Not only do you need to make your website mobile-friendly, but you also need to optimize your website to make it convenient for everyone who visits it. As much as people like to talk about how millennials have “short attention spans”, the fact of the matter is that this demographic places significant value in efficiency. This expectation extends to all things, especially in anything that relates to the online world.
Having a website that is difficult to navigate through can be annoying and will make someone close it right away. A well-optimized website includes navigation that includes all of the categories and other information such as an about page, contact page, and others that make it easy to navigate through. Optimization also pertains to things such as short load times and web error incidence rates.
Provide Fast Payment Methods
Recently, many e-commerce websites offer fast and easy transactions, which means fast payment methods. And this is not a surprise considering millennials are a fast-paced generation and want more convenience. This ties back to millennials placing an emphasis on efficiency. Providing fast payment methods, such as GCash, PayMaya, and Paypal, will undoubtedly feed into that need for efficiency and convenience. This will make millennial customers happy, which often leads to repeat and loyal customers.
Market Your Brand
Lastly, market your brand. Although this is an obvious tip, it is still very much essential to take note of. Millennials are known to prioritize businesses with strong branding that they can relate to. As such, it is essential to market your brand in a way that makes it relatable to the generation that will be your customer base for the next 30 years or so. Creating a meaningful brand will help communicate your company objectives to your target market.
As helpful as these tips may be at times, these can be difficult to implement all in one go, especially if you have only recently shifted your business to an e-commerce platform. In such cases, it may be a good idea to prepare yourself better for the challenges of the online marketplace by taking an E-commerce Bootcamp, such as the one offered by Enderun Extension.