Internet Marketing – Reaching Generation Y Tweens, Teens and Twenty Somethings

A new area of focus in target groups is the 10-30 year olds, also known as Generation Y. This segment uses texting, email, social media, video and search engines extensively. In other words this generation is extremely comfortable as well as dependent on technology; they also have more discretionary spending power than their parents. When it comes to marketing, this is one group that you have to hit and hit hard.

In online marketing, there are several ways you can reach this segment.
Text messaging – The average number of text messages sent by a teen in month, numbers well over 2,200. When you consider that this number breaks down to around 75 texts a day, the importance of a text messaging campaign becomes apparent.

Social media – Generation Y use many web 2.0 applications and are comfortable using them for communication. With over 200 social media applications, communication within the social media communities has spread like wildfire. Two advantages of using social media to reach potential customers are that a.) You can target very specific demographics (25 year old, living in Texas, working in IT, married with kids, etc) and b.) Once targeted you can converse with them and get their feedback.

SEO and Search engines – This generation researches literally everything using the web. The main tool used in this research – Search engines. Therefore search engine optimization and first page ranking are of utmost importance.

Online Video – Reaching this segment through video is better and easier than through an eBook. They respond to it faster and absorb the information better. The fact that YouTube experienced a growth of 32% in the two-year period spanning March 2007 to March 2009 is evidence of this trend.

The bottom line is, Generation Y responds to brands that communicate with them. This means that as an online business you have to start using all methods at your disposal to start communicating if you want your brand to succeed.