Every audience segment has its own unique set of behaviors and preferences, which can often be attributed to key demographics, like income level, age, or location. By segmenting your audience by these relevant defining characteristics, you can better cater your messages to your users and, ultimately, drive engagement.
To better understand how age and country impact a customer’s willingness to interact with brands, we recently launched our 2020 Global Messaging and Engagement Report. The report surveyed over 4,000 consumers in the US, UK, France, Germany, and Japan to learn how email and SMS preferences vary around the globe.
Based on the distinct preferences we found between consumers in different countries, we’ve just launched a US-specific version of the report. Our new US 2021 Messaging Engagement Report uncovers how Americans of all ages prefer to engage digitally with brands.
Comprised of insights from 20 in-depth qualitative interviews and 750+ online surveys, this report details:
US’ consumers messaging preferences by age
Top reasons why consumers interact with or ignore email/SMS messages
Email/SMS best practices
Data-backed strategies for improving customer engagement
Our research did identify a few ways each generation’s communication preferences differ. To give you a taste of the report’s findings, here are two of the unique ways we found specific age groups prefer to hear from brands:
While Gen Z and millennial recipients like to see variety in their subject lines and aren’t opposed to brands using the occasional emoji, we found that older generations prefer more conservative subject lines. One Gen X respondent even stated the presence of an emoji makes them more likely to think a message is spam.
Texting isn't just for the youngins – baby boomers and Gen Xers actually prefer it more than any other generation. Gen Z and millennial respondents actually said they prefer email and social media ads over SMS (although SMS was a very close third). Older generations listed SMS messaging as their second favorite way to interact with brands after email, citing that they prefer the speed, ease, and convenience of texting over other channels.
Whether you’re just getting started with SMS/MMS marketing or looking to optimize your existing program, these findings go to show how important it is to know your audience. Audience segmentation can help your brand deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. Perfecting that process then increases the likelihood of an individual interacting with your message and ultimately doing business with your brand.
Download the US 2021 Messaging Engagement Report now to get access to all our findings and learn how to build an email and SMS strategy that meets your US customers’ preferences. You’ll get a better understanding of how customers of all ages want to interact with your business.
