How to Bring Millennials Crawling to Your Website

Millennials, or young adults between the ages of 18 and 35, are considered some of the pickiest customers when it comes to ecommerce. It’s difficult to attract them, and once you get their attention, it’s hard to make them stay. Sometimes, they might not seem worth the effort, but if you consider the fact that they’re the source of $1.3 trillion in annual buying power, you might change your mind.

Millennials are one of the most diverse groups of buyers, and come from all different cultural backgrounds. It’s difficult to capture their attention, but there are a few characteristics of good design and marketing that can bring millennials crawling to your website.

It’s All About Mobile

You should know that more than 85 percent of millennials own smartphones, and that they use those phones for the majority of their online shopping, web browsing, article reading, and social connection. Forty percent of customers avoid search results that aren’t tagged as mobile-friendly and the same percentage will abandon a website if it takes more than three seconds to load. These statistics alone show that your website needs to be responsive if you want to keep your customers.

To make your site mobile friendly, focus on optimizing the landing pages to load quickly and without distortion. Also, avoid using graphics that are too heavy to show up free and clear on a smaller screen. Creating a mobile app for your website is also a popular solution for millennials.

Up Your Marketing Game

When it comes to marketing your website, you’ll need to work on changing a few of the traditional marketing conventions. Gimmicks may have worked 15 years ago, but this generation is only interested in highly relevant, valuable information that’s presented in a genuine fashion.

“The cheesy marketing tricks of the past are no good on millennials,” says a blog post from Green Residential, property managers and marketers. “They’re always digitally connected and are more likely to be swayed by clever, humorous marketing schemes than flashy signs and lists of amenities. They want to feel connected to the marketer, whether through social media or through the personality that’s used in advertisements.”

Fast and Beautiful

There are two things younger customers are looking for when it comes to website experiences: speed and aesthetics. Studies show that 47 percent of website visitors will abandon a page if it takes longer than 2 seconds to load. Furthermore, speed is directly linked to an increase in sales.

In addition to speed, beauty is an important part of the millennial experience. “First impressions are huge,” one millennial web browser expressed to Classy, an inspiration blog. “Take the time to develop a clean, well-executed brand. With so many affordable web design solutions out there, people are becoming accustomed to beautiful, simple, and well-designed websites. It’s the perfect way to build immediate trust and legitimacy within your organization.”

Obvious Brand Personality

“Millennials want to interact with companies that have heart,” says Libby Thomas, contributor for CX Cafe. “While professionalism is important, so is having an honest and engaging voice that customers can connect with. Visitors to your website are always one click away from someone else’s content. … Make your site and writing entertaining, useful, and unexpected in order to keep your younger audience interested and interacting with your site as long as possible.”

If your website visitors can see that you’re authentic with a different flare than others, they’ll be excited to explore your site and tell their friends. Otherwise, it’ll be another forgettable online experience, and you’ll have a hard time promoting your website’s content to today’s generation.

Photos courtesy of gettyimages.com