With the number of millennials recently surpassing baby boomers in the United States, it is not surprising that new research released today pinpoints millennial moms as the largest group of consumers reachable via beacon proximity engagements in-store.

The Census Bureau released data several weeks ago showing that, after decades as the largest age group in the country, baby boomers have finally passed the baton to millennials, the group of consumers who were born between 1982 and 2000. New research from inMarket, a leading beacon proximity platform, reveals that one subset of this group that marketers should be paying particular attention to is millennial moms.

“There has really been a changing of the guard in terms of consumer groups,” said Todd Dipaola, CEO/founder of inMarket. “We have these millennials who were viewed as kids for a long time, but now they outnumber baby boomers.

“The savviest retailers and the ones who have been evolving and staying ahead of their competitors have really doubled down on that and said we need to focus on this group who thinks differently, consumes media differently,” he said.

“The same type of person is shopping in a different way, too.”

On their own terms
U.S. Census data shows that there were 83.1 million millennials in the country as of June 2015. Of these, 41 million are women and 9 million are moms.

InMarket’s research reveals that 20 percent, or 8 million, of U.S. millennial women are actively using beacon-enabled shopping apps on their phones each month and are reachable via beacon proximity engagements.

However, even more impressive is the finding that 38 percent of millennial moms, or 3.4 million, are actively using beacon-enabled shopping apps and are reachable via beacon proximity engagements in stores every month.

The findings have implications for retailers and marketers as millennials’ habits are very different from baby boomers when it comes to how they consume content and engage with brands.

“Millennnials have grown up in an era of hyper change,” Mr. Dipaola said. “They are really a generation that consumes media and use the utility of media on their own terms.

“Print circulars in the mailbox aren’t being seen anymore,” he said. “It requires a deeper strategy to reach millennial moms on mobile.

“Marketers need to think about app scale and when to reach, is it on Angry Birds or when they are in the grocery store. It’s really about adapting their strategies to understand what works and what doesn’t.”

Proximity marketing
Beacon implementations in physical stores, malls and other locations have been growing over the past couple of years as a way to engage with smartphone-equipped shoppers at a hyper-local level.

Beacon proximity engagements include utility welcome messages upon entering the store, calls to action based on specific marketing efforts or branded engagements that are native to the app in which they are delivered.

Marsh Supermarkets partnered with inMarket in 2014 to roll out iBeacons to all of its United States stores. Earlier this year, the chain was one of the first to commit to an Apple Watch iBeacon experience and be able to measure the effectiveness of its iBeacons and wearables in-store by fully integrating its loyalty program with its mobile strategy (see story).

InMarket is one of the largest beacon platforms, reaching over 36 million monthly active shopping app users in thousands of U.S. retail locations.

“Proximity will evolve as the most important part of mobile over the next 18 months,” Mr. Dipaola said. “Not just in a certain ZIP code, but what are they doing at this time, are they about to buy coffee or are they looking to go see a movie.

“There are a lot of these differentiations that, as you get more data on a micro level, becomes more accurate for marketers,” he said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is senior editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York