Cracking the Millennial Code: How to Create Marketing Research Surveys That Work

Cracking the Millennial Code: How to Create Marketing Research Surveys That Work

Cint LogoFor marketers, gaining insights into the minds of millennials is a top priority. And for good reason. Not only will this allow them to create more targeted campaigns that generate better ROI, but it will also enable them to capitalize on millennials’ ever-increasing purchasing power. Accenture estimates that, by 2020, consumers born between 1980 and 2000 in the United States will spend a whopping $1.4 trillion dollars per year. That’s $1.4 trillion reasons for marketers to focus their market research efforts squarely on this age demographic. If they’re not asking questions to get to the heart of what millennials want, they risk missing out on their piece of the monetary pie.

To ask those questions, many marketers are turning to traditional online surveys too quickly—and cost-effectively—get the answers they crave. However, designing a survey that nets the right response rate from the right people is far more complicated than it seems. To capture the attention of an entire generation, marketers must trade in old survey methods for modern techniques. Here are three ways that marketers can design effective surveys to the attention of millennials:

Read More: Why Millennials Gravitate Towards Minimalistic Branding

Be Laser-Focused

All millennials are not created equal. Just like every generation before, they have varying preferences, traits and tendencies and, when developing surveys, marketers can’t afford to ignore their differences. When creating a survey targeting millennials, it’s important to focus on quality, not quantity. By taking a hyper-focused approach, marketers can zero in on their desired market and get to the core of what their targeted millennial customers want. With new survey tools, marketers can monitor campaigns in real-time and gain access to deep profiling data, enabling them to further segment target markets and make rapid adjustments along the way.

At Cint, we utilize a new breed of suppliers who can tap into millennial audiences in their natural habitat. They are used to high-quality user experience and the respondent experience in the survey has to match this as the competition to taking surveys is consuming content from SnapChat or YouTube.

Look in the Mirror 

In face-to-face interactions, people often use mirroring as a way to build rapport. Mirroring is a technique where someone subconsciously imitates gestures, speech patterns or attitudes of an audience in which s/he is hoping to connect. When developing surveys, marketers can find ways to mirror millennials by adjusting things like language, length and medium to better relate to the audience they want to reach.

Read More: It’s All In The Stories: How To Attract Millennials And Gen Z

You Get What you Give

It’s no secret that millennials are the sharing generation. Not nearly as concerned with privacy as previous generations, millennials are three times more likely to share personal information with favorite retailers than consumers over the age of 65. But that information doesn’t come for free. Giving up privacy — and giving marketers access to personal preferences and details — is all about a value exchange. And millennials value both transparency and when a brand stands for something beyond the bottom line.

Not only does this mean marketers must make their survey objectives clear, but it’s also important to think from the perspective of the recipient. Why should they complete the survey and what’s in it for them? millennials place greater importance on their time — even over money — so marketers must make it worth their while. Whether it’s a promise to keep them abreast of changes based on their feedback or even a small donation to a cause that’s important, exchanging something of value for their time will net better results.

Gaining insights from desired targets is a goal for every marketer. But when designing surveys, it’s important to think from the perspective of that consumer. To dig deep and find out what millennials really want, marketers must mirror their tendencies, focus on specific segments of the target market and make it worth their while. When marketers achieve this trifecta, they’ll be rewarded with the information they need to design effective, targeted campaigns.

Read More: Scrapping Email: How Millennials are Changing Workforce Communication

Picture of Oscar Carlsson

Oscar Carlsson

Oscar joined Cint in 2000 from Ericsson to take responsibility of Cint’s technology and development and later went on to be one founders of Cint’s unique exchange platform, products and technology. During his serving with Cint he has been responsible for product, technology, operations and business development as well as setting up Cint’s US operation in 2008 before 2017 taking the role as Chief Innovation Officer. Oscar acts as a thought leader in the industry in Market Research Technology and Mar-tech presenting and participating in various organization including ESOMAR, Insights Association, FIPP, Research & Result and SampleCon.

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