Mar
01

Millennial Mobile Mavens

teens and cell phones

Lets face it: Millennials LOVE their cell phones. In fact, they love them so much that it is commonplace for them to be on them constantly while hanging out together. Today I was out to lunch with my family at a local restaurant, and in walks a group of six high school boys, all of whom were on their cell phones. As they sat down, they all continued to use their phones for one reason or another, and were even on them as they ate! Now, I use my iPhone quite a lot, but I thought that was extreme.

However, I put myself in another age group’s shoes for a minute. I related the way I was viewing and judging these boys to how Boomers probably judge people like me, the Millennial demographic. Boomers don’t necessarily understand why we Millennials use our phones so much and rely on them 24/7, and I did not understand why these high school teens felt the need to use their phones while going out to eat together.

This example demonstrated to me the changing technological times. Kids are now starting to use technologies at younger and younger ages. I remember a woman speaking at a recent conference about her two year old child knowing what TiVo was for. Amazing, right? What will the next generation of teens be like a few years from now? Probably more adept at technology than a majority of us, as scary as that is to imagine.

CBS News reported, “The wireless trade association CTIA and Harris Interactive surveyed some 2,000 teens across the country and learned that teens feel that cell phones have become a vital part of their identities. They also believe that they can gauge a peer’s popularity or status by the phone he or she uses.” Of teens 13-18, 4 out of 5 of them own a cell phone! In addition, almost half of kids 8-12 now have cell phones. I have seen middle school students that I used to babysit using their cell phones, and was shocked at first, but not anymore after reading these statistics.

As you can imagine, SMS advertisements will probably prove to be highly effective, targeted and widely viewed in the upcoming years with the high increase in cell phone ownership in Millenial teens.

Feb
03

Gen Y is Reshaping Mobile Marketing


(Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons)

50% of Generation Y consumers have mobile phones. They also have much more disposable income than would be expected, and are very willing to spend it. Generation Y provides a great opportunity for marketers today, as they are reshaping they way consumers search for information and buy products. So what is a marketer to do??

Studies have found that the more mediums a customer is involved in with an organization, the more engaged and likely to respond they become. This provides a great opportunity for both social media and mobile engagement with this age group. Gen Y is hugely dominant on social networking sites, and also have access to mobile phones and text messaging. Therefore, if the two are combined, think of the buying power they will then have! Although SMS marketing is not big yet, it will be during the age of smart phones and increased Gen Y spending.

SMS can be used like Facebook and Twitter, but it is better because it results in a quicker response to a promotion. Chad Hallert, Director at Ecommerce stated, “We tried stand alone offers with mobile, social and email…when you break them up to pieces, nothing really competes with e-mail, and the other two don’t look as valuable as they are”.

When SMS and social marketing are combined in a campaign, results are improved by 5-8%. This is because the SMS alert or Facebook update is added to an already existing campaign with a website, paid search and e-mail. The increased response rate is due to higher customer engagement (Sutton).

So how has Generation Y reshaped mobile marketing? They provide companies the opportunity to reach them in a new medium that other generations may not respond to. And since they are consuming many different types of media each day, there is a high potential of reaching them in various ways, generating interest, and making a purchase.

What do you think?

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