There are roughly 42 million teens in the US who spend, on average, about $4,000 each year. Is your business benefitting from a teen customer base? Although well over half of America’s teens are online, only 6% are emailing each other on a daily basis. Reaching them via email, therefore, is not necessarily the best avenue for marketers to take. Instead, your business might want to rethink its direct mail campaign to more effectively reach teens.
Not every business needs to worry about the teen audience. If your business sells plumbing supply parts or sheet metal, there’s little reason to worry about the teenage demographic. If, however, part of your customer base includes teens, you can improve sales to this age bracket by targeting them with a direct mail campaign. Marketing to teens is important because teenagers are likely to become brand loyal early on. Marketing experts also suggest that teens wield considerable buying power. While twenty years ago teens were still focused on buying clothes and music, they are, today, purchasing more expensive merchandise like mobile tablets and smart phones.
Marketers have found that, simply put, teens like getting mail. Direct mail provides teens with what they love: to be treated as adults. While most of the direct mail that teens receive is from colleges and universities attempting to market to them, savvy businesses are also targeting this group with campaigns designed to tap into teens’ largely disposable income. When it comes to the teen audience, the novelty of direct mail has not worn off. Businesses simply need to provide relevant content to teens about merchandise or upcoming sales.
Studies have shown that teens respond to informative content. A direct mail campaign should attempt to provide information about products that are relevant to teens. Providing a teen with an incentive like a buy-one,get-one free offer is the type of giveaway that teens find hard to resist. Short, bold headlines with a clear call to action should reach teens.Imagery is also important to teens, so be sure to choose images that are likely to appeal to this demographic.
The fact is, direct mail has been shown to be the most effective means to reach teens, according to a study by the Center for Media Design of Ball State University. The reason colleges continue to connect with teens via direct mail is because it works. If it works for them, it might just work for your business too.
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