Millennials Actually Prefer Physical Mail. What?

We all know the stereotypes of the millennial generation. They are constantly glued to their smartphones. All they do is go to social media, text their friends, and read online blogs.

Companies do their best to market to millennials and gain their business. How do they do this? Through digital advertising. Although there may be some truth to this, millennials are not completely addicted to their phones. Surprisingly, the best way to reach a millennial is actually not through their smartphone.

Research has revealed that 77% of millennials pay attention to direct mail advertising. To that end, print ads are actually better at getting millennials to respond than digital advertising. Small businesses everywhere are now contacting printing companies and investing in printing services to have marketing material physically mailed to millennial consumers. How exactly does this work? Why do millennials prefer direct mail ads to digital ones? Let’s take a look at physical mail.

They Ignore Digital Ads

First off, a study conducted by the United States Postal Service (USPS) demonstrated that almost half of millennials ignore digital ads. It also revealed that only 15% of the same millennials ignored direct mail. “The study shows that 77% of millennials pay attention to direct mail advertising, 90% think it’s reliable [and] 57% have purchased in response to direct mail,” writes The Media Post. The study found that this could be a result of processing speed. Digital ad content is processed much more quickly, making it easy to skim over. In opposition, the nature of physical mail requires millennials to spend more time looking at and reading the material they receive.

Physical Mail Makes Them Happy

Secondly, there’s something about receiving mail that just makes millennials giddy. Okay, not quite. But physical mail and advertisements do trigger brain activity associated with feelings of self-value and desirability. Participants of the study had much stronger emotional reactions when receiving the physical mail as opposed to an email or other online marketing messages. This means they were much more likely to remember and take stock in physical advertisements.

Although it may be hard to believe, millennials actually are much more likely to respond to direct mail ads than emails or other ads they see on the internet. Lastly, if you are a business owner and are looking to reach these millennial consumers, take advantage of printing services near you to get your ads out there.