- What motivates and interests this generation?
- How can universities communicate and how does this student group communicate with each other?
- What can we tell about how this generation consumes content?
The millennial index highlights five different segments and personas (See Chart 1). Depending on your focus (undergraduate vs. graduate studies), you will find a different share of these segments among your target audience.
- The digital window shopper
- Digital socialites
- Dynamic media Junkie
- Casually engaged
- The emerging technocracy
We would expect that digital socialites fit more into the undergraduate pool. This younger segment's characteristics include active participation in online communities and social networks.
We’d like to highlight two other findings from the research: international connections and video consumption (see chart 2 and 3 below).
We find it very encouraging that almost 50% of all millennials have a connection in their digital social network outside the U.S. Maybe not surprising, that percentage is even higher in the United Kingdom (small country with more international connections).
Regionally in the U.S. the Mid-West lags behind other regions in terms of percentage of millenials with international connections. We know that international student enrollment has increased in the Mid-West and it will be interesting to track global connections over the next few years.
Lastly, as we have highlighed previously, use of online video is becoming increasingly important. It's the "YouTube" generation in the U.S. and in most of the world and the "YouKu" generation in China. Video content is a critical and effective marketing tool to reach this prospective student group.
Bottom Line: as your target audience changes, it is important to adjust the tools and processes you use to reach them. Understanding your audience, what they want to do and how you can meet that desire is what makes great brands thrive.
You can download the research summary here>>>
(Source: Charts 1 - 3, www.themillenialindex.com "The Millennial Consumer".
