eCommerce Tips for Marketing to Teens

Teens account for an astonishing amount of the money being spent online! Gone are the days when Ward gave Wally or the Beaver a weekly allowance of fifty cents for mowing the lawn or washing the family car.

Many teens today have jobs, credit cards and some serious spending money to throw around.

In fact, teens are projected to spend over $91 billion online in 2011!

If you are selling products online that would appeal to this demographic, but you aren’t making any effort to target the market, you’re missing out on a lot of sales!

According to surveys, approximately one-third of all teens consider the internet as their primary source of entertainment.

To attract this affluent age group, here are a few tips to bear in mind:

Be real: When marketing to teens, be authentic. Just be who you are. Don’t overindulge in a lot of flowery hype that will be interpreted as phony. Be open, honest, and direct. This age group responds poorly to anything that sounds like a bunch of hokey stuff. Keep it real!

Generate some buzz: Grassroots marketing is key with teen sales. Create some buzz! You might give a special freebie to a group of users in a social community, for instance, and get them to help spread the word about your products. Make them feel special in some way. Provide them with deals and/or freebies that they can share with friends, then watch the buzz spread and spread!

Keep it simple: Teens have an exceptionally short attention span, in the main. So, keep your marketing message simple and get to the point quickly. Teens multitask….they might be watching TV while talking on the phone while surfing on a laptop. So, give them something they can act on fast. Don’t have a lot of other links, too many images or other things going on besides your main message, or you’ll probably lose them.

Engage and provide interaction: Teens love interaction online! Take advantage of some of the new interactive website tools to make your site fun and interesting to teens.

The teen market is a golden opportunity for the ecommerce entrepreneur!

This article was by Amanda Brooke from Drop, Ship, Access.