Why Organic Search Is A Crucial Channel For Millennials

58 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als expect brands to pub­lish con­tent online for before they make a pur­chase.

Pat Hong By Pat Hong from Linkdex. Join the discussion » 1 comment

Organ­ic” isn’t just a buzz­word for mil­len­ni­als. Just over half of all mil­len­ni­als active­ly try to include organ­ic food as part of their diet, more than any oth­er gen­er­a­tion, and that pref­er­ence for some­thing nat­ur­al and “real” also extends to the way they con­sume dig­i­tal media.


The fact that mil­len­ni­als val­ue hon­esty and authen­tic­i­ty has been well cov­ered, and there also evi­dence that tra­di­tion­al print or tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing is less effec­tive at engag­ing mil­len­ni­als.

A report con­duct­ed by Elite Dai­ly, Mil­len­ni­al Con­sumer Trends 2015, fur­ther con­firms mil­len­ni­als’ eschew­ing of tra­di­tion­al media and adver­tis­ing, with a sur­vey of 1,300 respon­dents reveal­ing that mil­len­ni­als pre­fer to be influ­enced by the opin­ions of their friends (37 per­cent), par­ents (36 per­cent), or online experts (17 per­cent), over that of tra­di­tion­al media and adver­tis­ing.

In addi­tion, 58 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als expect brands to pub­lish con­tent online for before they make a pur­chase, and 43 per­cent con­sid­er the qual­i­ty of authen­tic­i­ty to be more impor­tant than the con­tent itself.

Authenticity Over Advertising

Mil­len­ni­als place the great­est reliance on blogs when con­sid­er­ing a pur­chase, with 33 per­cent con­sid­er­ing blogs to be the top media source, accord­ing to Elite Dai­ly’s report.

Less than 3 per­cent con­sid­er adver­tis­ing in TV news, mag­a­zines, and books to be the most influ­en­tial source in their pur­chase jour­neys. In fact, only 1 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als admit­ted that a com­pelling adver­tise­ment would make them trust a brand more.

In addi­tion, 60 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als said that they are often or always loy­al to brands that they cur­rent­ly pur­chase, sug­gest­ing there is a great deal of val­ue for brands who can win the loy­al­ty of a con­sumer.

With iOS 9 now allow­ing users to use ad block­ers, organ­ic search con­tent such as blogs and reviews may be one of the best ways to reach mil­len­ni­als in the research and con­sid­er­a­tion stages of a pur­chase. This part of the pur­chase jour­ney can be high­ly sig­nif­i­cant. For large pur­chas­es, such as a home, mil­len­ni­als can spend a great deal of time seek­ing out this con­tent, with 83 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als report­ing they begin research­ing a pur­chase up to six months in advance.

I‑Want-To-Do’ Moments

The moments con­sumers turn to search to make a query is “I‑Want-To-Do” moments, search­es that peo­ple make on the spur of the moment, any­thing rang­ing from “how to tie a tie”, to “how to make a cake”. This kind of usage is espe­cial­ly pro­nounced amongst mil­len­ni­als.

Accord­ing to Google, 67 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als agree that they can find a YouTube video on any­thing they want to learn. Google calls these micro-moments “the new bat­tle­grounds for peo­ple’s hearts, minds, and dol­lars,” because they present a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for brands to engage in a non-adver­to­r­i­al way:

Most mar­ket­ing plans are ground­ed in tra­di­tion­al one-way media: Broad­cast from brands to large audi­ences. With­out sig­nals of intent, tra­di­tion­al media makes it impos­si­ble to know whether some­one actu­al­ly needs or wants your prod­uct. But when peo­ple ask how to do some­thing, that’s a need. That’s some­one ask­ing, ‘can you help me out?’ Dig­i­tal media let brands respond to those ques­tions and be there at the very moment some­one needs them most. Brands that suc­cess­ful­ly do this can win loy­al­ty and dri­ve sales to boot. In fact, near­ly one in three mil­len­ni­als say they’ve pur­chased a prod­uct as a result of watch­ing a how-to video.”

Engaging Millennials

Organ­ic search and con­tent will be a key chan­nel to win­ning the aware­ness, pur­chas­es, and loy­al­ty of mil­len­ni­als as it allows brands to respond to the needs of this audi­ence, whether that be with con­tent, infor­ma­tive videos, or arti­cles.

Mil­len­ni­als expect brands to active­ly con­sid­er their wants and needs, and are pre­pared to engage with a brand and pro­vide feed­back. Accord­ing to Elite Dai­ly’s find­ings, 42 per­cent of Mil­len­ni­als said they are inter­est­ed in help­ing com­pa­nies devel­op future prod­ucts and ser­vices.

For mil­len­ni­als, this kind of con­tent, which caters for moments they are seek­ing answers, is pow­er­ful as it ful­fils a gen­uine rela­tion­ship between a brand and their audi­ence. As the gen­er­a­tion grows and matures, organ­ic search and con­tent will pro­vide much more so than adver­to­r­i­al mes­sages, inspir­ing greater brand aware­ness and ulti­mate­ly loy­al­ty.

Pat Hong

Written by Pat Hong

Editor at Linkdex/Inked, Linkdex

Pat covers the SEO industry, digital marketing trends, and anything and everything around Linkdex. He also authors Linkdex's data analysis and reports, analysing the state of search in various industries.

Inked is published by Linkdex, the SEO platform of choice for professional marketers.

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